nuTTiMTrriMn 




liilii^ 



III- 



iiiil 



i; 



"..,^- 



v'^- 



A^- 



C' 






^^^ ''-'-. 



-y 



■'. ./■ 






%=> 


.?" '-^. 


'., -„ 




/^ 


■ « 









.0C5. 



OO^ 






.-;-^' ,;• ^^" 



o^^- 



.^-^ -^^ 



'''^..<^' 






,0o. 



co^ 



■V' K 



-^ .^■ 



,vX> 



N>. ,/>„ 



s'^' ^-^ 





-.o^' 
cO\ 


0^ 






•v,.. 







s^% 



■xV 



.\> -^v. 






^y 









-^^ 



,x^^' -^^ 






.\V^' 



,0o 



THE FALL OF SANTIAGO 



THE 
FALL OF SANTIAGO 



THOMAS J. VIVIAN 

Author of " With Dewey at Manila." 




R. F. FENNO & COMPANY : 9 and ii E. 

SIXTEENTH STREET : : NEW YORK 

1898 



1 n ii Q 



5936 



Copyright, 1898 

BY 

R. F. FENNO & COMPANY 



C09I 



The Fall of Santiago 



zntiago 



1B9C5. 



Ettt 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER I. PAGE 

How Schley CLased Cervera's Fleet 5 

CHAPTER II. 
How Hobson Sank the Merrimac 25 

CHAPTER III. 
How the Marines Fought at Guantanamo 51 

CHAPTER IV. 
How Shafter Landed His Army at Daiquiri 72 

CHAPTER V. 
How the Rough Riders Fought at La Guasima 95 

CHAPTER VL 
How the Army Marched to the Front 112 

CHAPTER VII. 

How El Caney Was Carried 132 

CHAPTER VIIL ■ 
How San Juan Was Stormed and Taken 155 

CHAPTER IX. 
How Schley Destroyed Cervera's Fleet 190 

CHAPTER X. j 

How Toral Surrendered More than was Asked for 227 




(.■opvright 



'^lap sliovving tlie scene of the 
The roads leading from Daitjuiri and biboney have been heavily lined, not t< 




y operations around Santiago. 

te their importance as ways of travel, but, tor the purpose of identification. 



THE FALL OF SANTIAGO. 



CHAPTER I. 

HOW SCHLEY CHASED CERVERa's FLEET. 

At the time that the great sea hunt for 
Admiral Cervera's elusive fleet began, the condi- 
tion of things specifically hinging on it was 
just this : 

There were three positive and five possible 
parties in the hunt. The positive parties were 
Schley's Flying Squadron, then a resting one at 
Hampton Eoads; Sampson's Blockading Fleet, 
off Havana; and Admiral Cervera's Cape Verde 
Squadron, so called because at the outbreak of 
hostilities the Spanish ships constituting that 
squadron were at the Cape Verde Islands, The 
possibilities were Admiral Camara's fleet at 
Cadiz and Admiral Villamil's squadron, concern- 
ing whose exact location there existed much 
doubt. Ever since the 25th of April, the date of 
the declaration of war between the United States 
and Spain, it was a self-evident strategical propo- 
sition that no definite campaign in the West 



6 The Fall of Santiago. 

Indies could be laid out and carried through 
until an accounting had been raade with the 
Spanish fleet or fleets. 

In general: The blockade of Havana was estab- 
lished; the presidential policy was esteemed 
from the outside to be one of pacific waiting; 
Admiral Dewey had destroyed the Spanish fleet 
at Manila; and Spain was threatening to send a 
heavy sea force against him in the hope of re- 
gaining her power in the Orient. Troops were 
gathering from every part of the United States 
toward the fields of Ghickamauga and the blazing 
sand spits and coral keys of Florida; the different 
States had been called on to send their quota of 
volunteers to the front; and the government 
agents were busy all over the world buying war 
ships and craft convertible into cruisers. 

Such was the naval and military status when 
late on the night of May 12 Commodore Schley 
walked into his cabin on the Brooklyn with an 
unopened dispatch in his hands, which dispatch 
had just been brought out from Fortress Monroe. 
An hour after, it being then exactly one a.m.. 
May 13, a string of colored lights was displayed 
from the flagship, "Be ready to put to sea at 
daybreak." Evidently there were many wake- 
ful eyes on the fleet, and no sooner had the com- 
modore's signal gone up than a whole colony of 



The Fall of Santiago. 7 

drug stores seemed to spring into being as the 
colored lights were run up all around with the 
answer "Signal understood. We will be ready. " 

There was no more sleep that night on board 
the fleet, and although they did not sail at day- 
break, the executive officers made the effort of 
their lives to do so. The laggards in this case 
were the converted cruiser St. Paul and the 
cruiser New Orleans which were coaling at New- 
port News. The squadron waited, to the visible 
heat and audible impatience of the commodore, 
until half-past three in the afternoon, and then, 
accompanied by a big collier, the Brooklyn, 
Massachusetts, Texas, Minneapolis and Scorpion 
sailed, leaving instructions for the St. Paul and 
New Orleans to follow as quickly as they could. 

Save for the delay there was jollity all over the 
fleet, for though the men were not sure what 
they were going to do, they were certain that 
they were going to do something, and that they 
had two hundred guns of the most modern type, 
eighteen hundred officers and men, and seven 
good vessels to do it with. 

Next day, that is May 14, the squadron was off 
Charleston and there it was found that the sealed 
orders under which sail was made from Hamp- 
ton Eoads, read only to put to sea at once and 
proceed to Charleston, there to receive further 



8 The Fall of Santiago. 

orders. It may be said here, and vrith much 
appropriateness, that rarely for an instant was 
there any evidence of indecision on the part of 
those in control of the Santiago campaign and 
that with few exceptions the plans that were made 
were clear, were expressed to those who had to 
discharge them with equal clearness, and carried 
out as undeviatingly as the changing circum- 
stances of war would permit by those in com- 
mand of the operations on land and sea. At 
Charleston the new orders were to proceed to 
Havana with all expedition there to join forces 
with Admiral Sampson, under whose command 
two fast fleets would be made up for the Cervera 
hunt. 

But while the plans of the hunters were known 
with some kind of definiteness those of the 
quarry were decidedly nebulous. The Dons 
were rich in what may be called the feint and 
ambuscade of news. The Cape Verde Fleet had 
sailed. It had not sailed. It was at the 
Canaries. It was at Cadiz. These were some of 
the sample reports. Of course, at Washington 
data of a somewhat more definite character had 
been gathered by trusted agents, but so wilj- and 
uncertain, so full of dodges, turns, back-tracking 
and unexpected dashes was Cervera at the last 
that not the combined intelligence of the Secret 




Admiral Cevera. 



The Fall of Santiago. 9 

Service branches of the War and Navy Depart- 
ments and the untiring and omnipresent news- 
paper men could always tell where Spain's great- 
est of naval dodgers really was. 

The facts that were patent were these. "When 
the war broke out Cervera, as has been said, was 
at St. Vincent in the Cape de Verde Islands. 
Now these islands belong to Portugal and it was 
intimated to Portugal by our State Department 
that the presence of Cervera's fleet, coupled with 
the ostentatious announcement that Spain in- 
tended to gather at St. Vincent one of those 
formidable armadas which have ever been her 
pet embodiment of naval power, would seem to 
indicate that the nation with which we were at 
war was using the territory of a nation with 
which we were at peace as a base of offensive 
operations and we would like to know just what 
Portugal's position in the matter was. In 
answer to this demand Portugal's prime minister 
cabled to the State Department at Washington, 
April 26, that the Spanish flotilla would be given 
forty-eight hours in which to leave St. Vincent. 

When the forty-eight hours were up, however, 
the Spanish flotilla was still at St. Vincent. 
Then, on April 28, Portugal, in response to 
another quiet but still more emphatic interroga- 
tory from Washington as to her position, did 



10 The Fall of Santiago. 

declare her neutrality, and Cervera, having in 
this friendly leisure mobilized his fleet and 
thoroughly provisioned and coaled it, soon after 
steamed away with his black-painted warships. 
But with the certainty of Cervera 's departure 
ended the certainty of his whereabouts, and it 
was from the latter date that the Cervera hunt 
may be said to properly begin. 

Would he sail back to Cadiz to join forces with 
Camara? Would he sail to the Canaries, there 
to wait until reinforced by Admiral Villamil with 
his undefined fleet? Was he planning to inter- 
cept the battleship Oregon on her great trip 
around Cape Horn and crush her by force of 
numbers? Would he make a dash for the North 
Atlantic ports; reduce the summer cottages of 
Newport to ruins; loot the Boston banks of their 
millions; or, dashing down Long Island Sound, 
lay Brooklyn waste and raze New York's sky 
scrapers to the ground? Was Newport News, 
with its yards and government supplies to be 
captured? Was Charleston in danger or Key 
West to be bombarded? Did the Spanish 
admiral contemplate a flight across the Atlantic 
to Porto Rico with a view of using that port as a 
strong base for menace and attack? Would he 
push on through the Carribean Sea and get into 
the shelter of Cienfuegos, with its railroad to 



The Fall of Santiago. 11 

Havana, and so bring new heart and supplies to 
Governor-General Blanco; or would he make one 
wild cut at the blockading squadron and try to 
get into Havana itself? All of these proposi- 
tions had to be considered and though some were 
wild, none could be dismissed as impossible. 

It may be asked why Cervera's fleet was con- 
sidered such an important factor; why the pro- 
gramme of the United States depended so much 
on the disposal of the Cape Verde flotilla and 
why the plan was not adopted to quietly wait 
until Cervera's fleet materialized and then meet 
and smash it. The answer is a plain one. 
"When Cervera left St. Vincent his fleet consisted 
of four first-class cruisers — the Vizcaya, the 
Almirante Oquendo, the Cristobal Colon and the 
Infanta Maria Teresa; and three torpedo boat 
destroyers, the Furor, the Terror, and the 
Pluton. Not such a formidable fleet, one might 
imagine, considering the fact that Schley's flying 
squadron included the Massachusetts, Texas, 
Brooklyn, New Orleans, and Minneapolis; that 
Sampson from his blockaders could make up a 
fighting fleet consisting of the Iowa, Indiana, 
New York, Amphitrite, Terror, Detroit, Mont- 
gomery, and Marblehead; and that if he had 
luck. Captain Clark could join these with the 
Oregon, Marietta and Nictheroy. The potent 



12 The Fall of Santiago. 

fact about Cervera's fleet, however, was its 
homogeneity. It was all alike. In a collection 
of fighting vessels, as in a collection of fighting 
men, its unit of capability is its weak spot. 
"When moving into action or retiring from one, 
the fastest cruiser can only sail at the speed of 
the slowest — that is, if there is to be any concert 
of attack or retreat. The four cruisers of Cer- 
vera were not only all alike in speed, they were 
all alike in strength, in the disposition, art of 
training and power of their batteries. The ton- 
nage of the Cristobal Colon was G,840 while that 
of the other three cruisers was exactly 6,890 for 
each vessel. The Colon's batteries could throw 
in one ton of metal at each volley, while the 
volley of the other three was one and a quarter 
tons each. The speed of each ship was tAventy 
knots. 

It follows, then, that the four cruisers might 
practically be considered as one enormous 
fighting machine, with equal power to strike, 
speed to run, strength to resist and which, if 
properly handled, would really be one of the most 
formidable things afloat. It must not be inferred 
from all this that there would be any hesitation 
on the part of our fleet commanders to engage 
Cervera as soon as found, but it must be under- 
stood that Cervera afloat and unsmashed was a 
menace of formidable proportions. 




Com. Wmfield Scott Schley. 



The Fall of Santiago. 13 

Instructions Laving been received to proceed 
to Key West, to Key "West Schley's S(iuadron 
sailed. That scorched end of the United States 
was reached on May 18 and next day the com- 
modore was joined by Admiral Sampson and his 
fleet. Sampson had been off on an errand of his 
own and though it had been moderately success- 
ful in one way, it had been a failure in another 
and he was not in the most cheerful of moods 
when Schley went to visit him. His double pur- 
pose when he drew away from the blockading fleet 
outside Havana had been to chase down Cervera, 
and failing that, to put Porto Rico into such an 
undefendable condition that the Spanish admiral 
might not be able to use it as a harbor of refuge. 
He did not engage the Spaniard and so on May 
9 reported to Washington an inability to find 
any trace of Spain's master in the art of hiding, 
and announced his intention to bombard Porto 
Eico. That intention he carried into partial 
effect on the 12th of May, but of what was done 
on that date and in that action it would be 
too wide a parenthesis to speak here. 

After thoroughly canvassing the situation and 
as a result of the combined capital of information 
possessed by the admiral and commodore and 
furnished them from Washington, it was decided 
that instead of combining the fleets for a further 



14 The Fall of Santiago. 

sea hunt the vessels under command of Sampson 
and Schley should be divided and two lines of pur- 
suit followed. Sampson held that he had given 
Porto Rico such a shaking up that it was in no 
condition to afford anything except the shakiest 
kind of support to Cervera; that the Spanish 
admiral would not think of remaining there 
•when once he discovered its condition ; and that 
so much, therefore, in the twistings and dou- 
blings of the pursued fleet might be eliminated. 
There remained then, the dash on the Atlantic 
ports, the endeavor to force the blockade of 
Havana, the push ahead for a port on the 
southern coast of Cuba or the double and return 
flight to Cadiz. As to the ports on the southern 
coast of Cuba there were only two which were 
thought necessary of consideration — those of 
Cienfuegos and Santiago. Of these the balance 
of opinion was that everything was in favor of 
Cervera's selection lighting upon Cienfuegos. 
It lies right across from Havana on the southern 
coast, has an excellent harbor, and, as has been 
intimated, is within easy railroad connection 
with the Cuban capital. Then, too, it was one 
of the places on which a blockade had been set, 
so that if the Spanish Admiral contemplated any 
scheme of relief Cienfuegos was the best place 
for its application. The fortifications of Cien- 



The Fall of Santiago. 15 

fuegos -were not as formidable, it is true, as tliey 
had been prior to May 14, when Commander 
McCalla, with the cruisers Marblehead and Nash- 
ville and the converted cruiser Windom, sent 
one of the big guns there sprawling, rent the 
forts at the harbor's entrance with four and 
six-inch shells, and left things generallj' demoral- 
ized after a three hours' administration of iron 
and steel correctives. McCalla's object had been 
to cut the cable between Cienfuegos and Man- 
zanillo and the ripping bombardment, which 
lasted from six to nine a.m. was inflicted because 
the Spanish forts had fired on the American 
boats while they were engaged in this enterprise. 
Still, Cienfuegos ranked as a fortified and very 
enticing haven for Cervera, and it was decided 
that leaving Commodore Watson to continue the 
blockade of Havana with his "mosquito fleet," 
Schley should sail around the western end of 
Cuba to that port, while Sampson was to sail 
eastward down to the "Windward Passage, so as 
to intercept Cervera should he try to make for 
Havana and at the same time to trap him should 
he have visited Porto Eico and found it unten- 
able. 

Commodore Schley sailed from Key West on 
May 19, taking with him the Brooklyn, Texas, 
Massachusetts, and Scorpion. These reached 



16 The Fall of Santiago. 



&^ 



Cienfuegos Sunday, May 22, and were there 
joined by the Iowa, the cruiser Marblehead, the 
torpedo boat Dupont, the gunboats Castine and 
Eagle, and the collier Merrimac, the latter craft, 
which was destined to become historical, having 
arrived at eight o'clock on the morning of May 
23 under the convoy of the Castine. "When 
Cienfuegos was reached it was seen that much 
work of reparation had been done on the forti- 
fications at the harbor mouth, so much indeed 
that even after the peppering which McCalla had 
administered it would have been no easy task to 
force a way past the batteries at Punta Colorado 
on the one hand, and the much more important 
fortification at the castle of Xagua on the other. 
Many contradictory reports were brought the 
commodore by Cuban scouts as to the presence 
of Cervera in Cienfuegos, the general trend of 
these reports, however, being that the Spanish 
admiral had arrived and was safely ensconced 
behind these fortifications. Schley was much 
inclined to the opinion that he had run down 
the Spanish admiral and had indeed prepared a 
report to that effect when the little gunboat 
Hawk, a converted yacht, brought such definite 
news of Cervera being really at Santiago, that he 
had to accept it as authoritative. He would 
have started for Santiago there and then, but the 




Castle ot El Morro, the eastern guardian of the sea gateway to Santiago. 



The Fall of Santiago. 17 



O" 



question of coaling — the pivotal question in 
naval proceedings nowadays — delayed him until 
Tuesday. 

With Schley at Cienfuegos preparing to run 
down to Santiago to establish the accuracy' of the 
Hawk's report; with Sampson cruising along the 
northern coast of Cuba and watching the Win- 
ward Passage, with the Yale and St. Louis, 
auxiliary cruisers, scouting and watching for Cer- 
vera at the Mona and Virgin Passages, and with 
half a dozen other scouts steaming here and there 
over the Atlantic and "West Indian seas, it will 
be appropriate here to show how Cervera eluded 
his pursuers. And as it happened, it was by one 
of the strange fortunes of war that the exact 
story came to light through the capture of the 
flagship's log-book, as the Cristobal Colon lay a 
battered and stranded hulk off Santiago's rocky 
shore. 

It will be remembered that Portugal informed 
our government that Cervera had been instructed 
to vacate his anchorage on April 26 with a forty- 
eight hours time of grace, he having arrived there 
on the 14tho As a matter of fact, Cervera left 
St. Vincent, April 30, the Colon towing the 
Furor, the Oquendo the Pluton, and the Teresa 
the Terror. When Cervera left he steamed west- 
ward. The next report was from Spain, that 



18 The Fall of Santiago. 

Cervera had returned home and that on May 
11 he was safe at Cadiz, waiting to be re- 
inforced by Admiral Camara's ships. Here 
again tbe truth is that on that very day he was 
within twenty-four hour's easy steam of Port de 
France, Martinique. Waiting at Port de France 
only for dispatches, he pushed on southwest- 
ward, and on Saturday, May 14, reached Wil- 
lemstad, the port of the Dutch island of Curacao. 
He entered the harbor with the Teresa and Yiz- 
caya, leaving the Oqueudo and Colon, with the 
three torpedo boat destroyers on the outside. 
The selection of Willemstad as a port of call, 
while at first blush it may seem to have been an 
out-of-the-way locality, was really an excellent 
one. The French cable for Caracas, Venezuela, 
touches at Curacao, so that he was able to com- 
municate with home over a friendly line and at 
the same time be posted as to the condition of 
things in Cuba. 

It doubtless had been Cervera's original plan 
to steam swiftly over the four hundred and 
seventy-five miles lying between Curacao and 
Porto Piico, and establish there a base of supplies 
and attack, but at the Dutch settlement he 
learned of Sampson's attentions to Porto Rico, 
and so having given out the intimation that he 
intended under the new condition of things, to 



The Fall of Santiago. 19 

keep in the friendly shelter of the South Ameri- 
can shores, sent the Terror on a scouting trip to 
Porto Rico, steamed away westward, then re- 
traced his way, put on all steam and crowded 
for Santiago, which he reached on the morning 
of May 19. 

The prosaic but essential work of coaling hav- 
ing been completed, Schley shipped anchor off 
Cienfuegos and steamed eastward. He was off 
Santiago on May 28, but neither from his guns 
nor from the shore batteries was a single shot 
fired to emphasize the fact of his arrival. 

It will not be going ahead of the proper 
sequence of fact and description to say here that 
the presence of Cervera's fleet in the harbor of 
Santiago, as something that could be sworn to 
from evidence of sight was an extremely diflScult 
matter of demonstration. Like all of the harbors 
along the Cuban coast, that of Santiago is bottle- 
shaped, with the neck as the entrance. But in 
the case of Santiago there is not only a neck, but 
a long and curved one. Moreover the shore 
sides of the neck entrance are so high and pre- 
cipitous that from the sea it is impossible to look 
into the harbor beyond that part which lies close 
to the inner end of the neck. How to satisfy 
himself that Cervera was at Santiago without 
sailing into the harbor presented itself, there- 



So The Fall of Santiago. 

fore, as the problem wliicb Schley would have to 
solve. To risk a sharp dash into the harbor with 
all its certain dangers and its uncertainties, its 
tortuous channel, mines and commanding forti- 
fications, with the chance of not finding the 
quarry in the presumptive hiding-place, was 
something about which even Schley hestitated. 
There remained then strategy, and that strategy 
the commodore employed. 

Schley knew as well as though he had been 
told by the Governor of Santiago that his 
movements were being closely watched from the 
shore, that indeed no move was made without 
being known and its significance noted. As soon 
therefore as the squadron had steamed into the 
blue water that lay in the bight of land forming 
what might be called the Bay of Santiago, it 
steamed slowly around, past the harbor mouth, 
close enough to distinguish the guns in the 
forts. Again no gun was fired. Upon reaching 
the extreme eastern limit of the bight the squad- 
ron was formed in line and steamed away west- 
ward as though it had been making merely a 
reconnaissance. The presumption was that if 
Cervera were in the long-necked and land-locked 
harbor of Santiago he would, if the feint were 
successful, move down toward the mouth to help 
resist the invader, and so come into the line of 
yision. 




High akzr in the Cathed-l at Santiago where a Te Deum was 
sung on the arrival of Cervera's fleet. 



The Fall of Santiago. ' 21 



o^ 



steaming away westward with as near an air 
of disgust and disappointment as it was possible 
for a squadron to assume, Schley signaled to stop 
when at a sufficient distance, it being then one 
o'clock on Saturdaj' afternoon, and the vessels hid 
themselves, so to speak, behind a point of land 
that shut out all observation from the Santiago 
lookouts. 

When Sunday morning broke, and Sunday 
seems to have been selected as the day of deeds 
in this war, all steam was made and the squadron 
■went churning its way back to Santiago. '\ Put- 
ting the keenest-eyed men aloft and arming him- 
self with the biggest pair of binoculars that the 
A^ ship possessed, the commodore went on the 
bridge and headed the flagship full speed for the 
harbor entrance. > Through his glasses he made 
out the earthworks and the Spaniards behind 
them, but no glimpse of vessels could he get. 
"When five miles from the shore the lookouts 
reported the masts of three ships peeping over 
the entrance cliffs. This was promising, but the 
commodore wanted to see for himself. 

Next Flag-Lieutenant Sears and Ensign 
McCalley, who were perched in the forward fight- 
ing top, declared they could see the vessels, and 
that one of them was the Cristobal Colon. Still 
Schley kept the vessel moving, and a few minutes 



22 The Fall of Santiago. 

later word was shouted down from aloft that two 
torpedo boats and a vessel of the Vizcaya class 
could be seen. Still the Brooklyn was kept on 
its course, until for an instant it lay right in a 
direct line of sight into the harbor. In that 
happy moment the commodore saw that his ruse 
had been successful, for there clustering about 
the inside of the entrance was Cervera's fleet. 

As the Brooklyn was turned quickly out, 
Schley took down his glasses and with a wink of 
most portentous satisfaction said: 

"I told you I would find them. I have caught 
them and they will never get home." 

Gratified as the commodore was, and as all his 
men were, at the finding of Cervera's fleet, this 
pacific end of the chase by no means gratified 
the sailors and the fighting men of the deck. 
The batteries had been cleared, the men stripped 
for action, and though the temperature was a 
hundred degrees in the shade, the sailors were 
hotter still to fight. But Schley believed that it 
was no time for a fight. For three days a howling 
storm with furious gusts of rain-laden wind had 
been sweeping this southeastern shore, the great 
ships were heaving and bumping in the cross 
running waves, and as an effective bombardment 
is diflScuIt enough under the best conditions, it 
was Schley's opinion that he might rest content 



The Fall of Santiago. 23 

with the discovery of Cervera as the final act of 
this edition of the play, without risking an anti- 
climax by firing shells around Santiago's forts. 
Having found him, however, the commodore 
was very determined not to let Cervera escape, 
and Sunday evening. May 29, found our squad- 
ron in battle line outside Santiago, the Brooklyn 
on the east of the line, then the Massachusetts, 
the Iowa, the New Orleans (Amazonas) and the 
Texas, while the Marblehead and Vixen scouted 
near the shore and the Harvard was racing over 
to Kingston to cable the news to "Washington. 

Cervera and his twenty -million-dollars' worth of 
cruisers had been found. 

I Madrid, it was learned afterward, characterized 
Y Cervera's slip into Santiago as a remarkable 
V^ piece of strategy and a tactician's victory. 

/ Santiago welcomed Cervera as the city's savior. 

I The whole community turned out to welcome the 

( admiral ; there was band-playing, song-singing, 
speech-making, fireworks and a Te Deum of 
thankfulness at the cathedral with the Arch- 

\ bishop Monsignor Saenz y Utero y Crespo 

j'oificiating in his most gorgeous raiment. At 
Washington the receipt of the news was regarded 
as having cleared up the entire situation, and as 
dispelling the clouds of uncertainty v>'hich had 

\ been over the War and Navy Department for 



M The Fall of Santiago. 

■weeks. It meant a radical cLange in the plan of 
campaign, but that change was from the 
general to the particular. It crystallized the 
operations into the specific act of capturing or 
destroying Cervera's fleet and possibly the in- 
vestment and capture of Santiago. 

With the sun setting of Sunday, May 29, the 
•wind went down also, and there could be heard 
the great diapason of the Texas men singing the 
hymn "Pull for the Shore," and as he heard it 
Schley again winked that portentous wink of his 
and said: "We'll be pulling there, sure enough, 
in a few' days." 



The Fall of Santiago. 25 



CHAPTEK II. 

HOW HOBSON SANK THE MERRIMAC. 

Washington's reply to Schley's notification of 
having found Cervera was : 

"Under no circumstances permit ships to 
escape. Destroy or capture them. " 

And as the circling events proved, the com- 
modore carried out those instructions to the 
letter. 

Soon after this order reached Schley, he was 
joined, Wednesday morning, June 1, by Samp- 
son with the New York, Oregon and Mayflower, 
and later by the torpedo boat Porter the 
Dolphin and the Adria with supplies and appli- 
ances for grappling and cutting marine cables. 
Schley went on board the New York to report 
and It was thought that the conference would 
result in some decided action. Schley related 
what has been told here, and in addition told of 
the capture of Cervera 's coal ship, the Restormel 
by Captain Sigsbee of the St. Paul, under the 
very guns of Santiago's El Morro on the 25th of 
May; of the bombardment of Santiago on May 



26 The Fall of Santiago. 

31, in which the batteries of Punta Gorcla, El 
Morro and Zacopa were furiously shelled, and so 
the commodore believed, a Spanish cruiser dis- 
abledo He thought at the time that it was the 
Cristobal Colon, but it was learned afterward 
that it was the old timer Eeina Mercedes which 
had been lying at Santiago. It was learned, too, 
that a shell from the Massachusetts had struck 
this cruiser, which had been drawn up behind 
the harbor entrance as a sort of floating battery, 
and, exploding, had partially sunk the ancient 
craft. Schley was not very enthusiastic over the 
result of this bombardment, and frankly stated 
that when he withdrew at six o'clock in the even- 
ing the Zacopa and Punta Gorda batteries were 
still firing. He therefore counseled that if it 
were decided to force an entrance into Santiago 
and engage Cervera a necessary preliminary 
would be to increase the blockading fleet with 
four monitors and the Helena, the "Wilmington, 
the Cincinnati, the Montgomery, the Detroit and 
the dynamite boat the Vesuvius — especially the 
latter — as with her dynamite bombs she might 
explode the mines along the entrance way and so 
clear a passage into the harbor after silencing 
the forts. 

Sampson held, however, and that without in 
the faintest discrediting the report of the com- 



The Fall of Santiago. 27 

modore, that the absolute identification of Cer- 
vera's fleet was first necessary, and the identifica- 
tion being complete, the bottling up of that fleet 
might be tried in a somewhat original and spec- 
tacular fashion. The following out of these two 
ideas brought into the fierce light of fame two 
young men. Lieutenant Victor Blue, of the gun- 
boat Suwanee, and Naval Constructor, Richmond 
Pierson Hobson. 

In the matter of occurrence, as well as in the 
relatively momentous results, the enterprise of 
Hobson comes easily first. But lest that of Blue 
should be lost sight of in the brighter light of 
that which enhaloes Hobson, the expedition of 
the lieutenant shall be dealt with first. 

To catch a glimpse of the masts of warships 
through the sinuous entrance to Santiago harbor, 
and to look (Town on those warships from the 
heights surrounding Santiago at such a distance 
as would make their identification absolute, were 
rightly esteemed by Sampson as two entirely 
different propositions; the one being burdened 
with the element of doubt, the other being en- 
dowed with the benefit of certainty. Admiral 
Sampson therefore determined to send a man on 
a trip of inspection, and the man he selected for 
this enterprise was Lieutenant Blue, who had 
already run the gauntlet of five Spanish gun- 



28 The Fall of Santiago. 

boats in the bay of Buena Vista, and had carried 
the American flag to the spot of his meeting 
with General Gomez. 

On Saturday, June 11, Blue was landed in a 
little coTe well to the east of the entrance and 
pushing his way through a country swarming 
with Spanish soldiery, and through the swelter- 
ing, tangled jungle, only halted when he peered 
through the cacti and palms which crested a hill 
overlooking the old city and the long blue bay. 
In the bay he saw Cervera's fleet, four armored 
cruisers, two torpedo boat destroyers, and the 
wrecked Eeina Mercedes, which with a gunboat 
had constituted Santiago's naval defense before 
the arrival of Cervera. Then backward through 
the sweltering jungle, dodging the Spanish out- 
posts and wriggling his way through a network 
of tangling vines and tearing thorns, until on 
Monday, ragged but triumphant, he stood on the 
quartei'-deck of the flagship New York and made 
his report to Admiral Sampson. 

Seventy-two miles of travel through an enemy's 
country and a pathless tropical thicket, is a deed 
which in times of ordinary enterprise would stand 
out as a matter for a volume, but when writing 
of these stirring times when every day saw some- 
thing done that marked the upspringingof anew 
hero. Lieutenant Blue's gallant work mustbedis- 



i 



The Fall of Santiao^. 29 

missed with a paragraph. It if the misfortune of 
comparison which diminishes Mie fact. 

So many, many things hay^ffibeen written and 
said and sung about Hobson, ^d how he put the 
stopper into the Santiago t»gttle that all there 
remains to do is to tell a cle^r running story of 
the actual facts, even at the risk of brushing 
aside one or two illusions, but, of course, with- 
out minifying the heroism of accomplishment. 

When sailing eastward; alcfait^ the northern 
coast of Cuba the contiilgqncie.Tof Cervera's cap- 
ture were more thaii^onle disjcussed on board 
Sampson's liagship-/s'o Samp,4on reported to 
Washington — and it was durin^g one of these 
discussions that the admiral said : 

"I think it. (luite possible we shall find that 
Cervera has made a running for it to Santiago 
harbor. If so, and if Schley has him shut up 
there I am in favor of closing the door of his 
prison house rather than of attempting to batter 
down the door-post." 

When asked what this plan might be the 
admiral replied that it was not quite formulated, 
but that it embraced the sinking of an obstruction 
in the mouth of the harbor, ''And by the by," 
he added, "young Hobson, of the Construction 
Bureau, is just the man I want to consult with, 
j I noticed him at San Juan when he stood at our 
X ) range-finder timing the shells." 

L 



30 The Fall of Santiago. 

Hobsou was sent for and to him was put the 
proposition of "niaking the harbor entrance 
secure against the possibilities of egress by the 
Spanish ships by obstructing the narrow part of 
the entrance" to quote Sampson's words. 
Hobson at once took the liveliest interest in the 
plan and asked for a day or two in which to con- 
sider the problem and the best means of working 
it out. At the end of the given time Hobsou 
reported to the admiral. His plan briefly was 
not to wait for stone-laden barges, which had 
been suggested as the best form of impediment, 
but to take one of the fleet colliers and sink her 
athwart the selected place in the channel. Hob- 
son showed that the drawbacks to the barge 
scheme Avere the time it would take to get them 
from a United States port, and the fact that thej'' 
would have to bo towed into position, while in 
the case of the collier there would be no delay 
and she would have the added advantage of be- 
ing a self-propelling engine. Hobson wound up 
by entering a plea that to him might be intrusted 
the active carrying out of the plan. 

"You know all that this means, Hobson?" 
asked the admiral. 

"I do, sir," replied Hobson; and the admiral 
consented. 

No one who knew Hobson could very well see 



The Fall of Santiago. 31 

how the admiral could have refused. Upright as 
one of his own Alabama pines; twenty-eight 
years old; ruggedly simple in his manners; with 
dogged determination expressed in every feature, 
from the deep set eyes, along the pronounced 
bridge of the nose down to the square-set jaw; 
the sweetheart of his mother ; not afraid to show 
that he carried a Bible in his kit; a student, 
equally ready to pray or to fight, and with a 
long record of having done both, "Eich" Hob- 
son was just the sort of man that any other man 
would have selected for the short and fiery cruise 
of the Merrimac. 

Sampson, it will be remembered, joined Schley 
off Santiago on Wednesday morning, June 1, 
and immediately on receiving Schley's report 
sent in his launch to reconnoiter ashore. The 
report brought back confirmed Schley's esti- 
mates of the difiiculties of running the forts and 
crystalized his resolution to attempt the bottling- 
up process and to attempt it at once. 
f The collier Merrimac was selected for the office 
\ of barrier. A Norwegian steam freighter, called 
the Solveid ; three hundred and forty -four feet 
long, and with a tonnage of five thousand three 
hundred and sixty-two tons; burned out while 
loading grain at Newport News, April 27, 1897; 
repaired at the Erie Basin, Brooklyn, for the 



32 The Fall of Santiago. 

Loue Star Line, and standing to that company 
at one hundred and ninety-two thousand dollars; 
sold to the government for three hundred and 
forty-two thousand dollars; no beauty and gen- 
erally cantankerous in her behavior — not a soul 
grieved when her selection for sacrifice was 
announced. 

As soon as the selection was made, active work 
was begun to fix her up for the slaughter. All 
her stores were taken out and all of her coal ex- 
cept two thousand tons. In the engine room, 
not to be technical, the covers to the valves of the 
big fire pump were so arranged that a single 
blow of a sledge would let in the sea; all water- 
tight doors were opened, and where possible, the 
bulkheads were broken down so as to give free 
play to the water as soon as it was admitted into 
the ship. The salient part of the plan was to 
scuttle her by outside explosion and as a means 
to this end, ten pitch covered 8-inch copper 
cases, each filled with eighty pounds of ordinary 
brown, prismatic powder and each fitted with an 
igniting charge, primer and connecting wire for 
electrically exploding the charge, were lowered 
over the port rail until they rested against the 
side of the vessel just below the water line; the 
charges being so arranged that in each case they 
would bear their explosive force against the 
space between the bulkheads. 



The Fall of Santiago. 33 

When the bombs had been lowered into posi- 
tion, the wires for exploding the charges were 
run along the deck and connected with a main 
wire leading to a dry battery and contact key on 
the bridge. Lastly, in the way of preparation 
for sinking her all her ports were lashed open i 
and the four cargo ports (the openings in the 
sides of the ship through which a cargo is taken 
on while the vessel is lying at her dock) were 
opened, two forward and two aft, there being 
about three feet of freeboard from the water to 
the lower edge of the cargo ports— that is, that 
as the vessel lay drawing sixteen feet of water 
these openings were nineteen feet above her keel. 
All these preparations meant that, were they 
successfully and simultaneously carried out, at the 
touch of the key and the blow of the sledge ham- 
mer, six great gaping holes would be torn in the 
ship's sides, the great sea valves would be 
opened, and as the vessel shuddered and rocked 
under the explosion the sea would rush into her 
and, thus inundated from stem to stern by 

r twleve rushing cataracts of water, the Merrimac 
/\ I would go down like a rock dropped from a cliff 

Mnto the sea. Lastly, as the plan for bringing 
her to a sudden halt at the desired locality, both 
of the ship's anchors were lashed over the rail 
at the starboard quarter in such a way that the 



34 The Fall of Santiago. 

chop of an ax would cut the lashiugs and drop 
them in an instant. Then, not that there was 
very much hope that they would be used, but as 
a Christian precaution, a lifeboat and a cata- 
maran life raft were slung over the side by steel 
lines and a ship's launch was to be detailed to 
follow in the wake and pick up the survivors of 
this Enterprise Perilous. 

All day long two hundred men were busy as 
bees stripping the Merrimac and preparing her 
for her last trip. From first to last, and that 
without any planning on the part of the partici- 
pators, the incident of the Merrimac was most 
spectacular. As the men pulled and tore and 
dragged at their work of discharging the collier 
Merrimac and charging her as a death machine, 
/ they sang sometimes cheerily, sometimes dole- 
' fully; and as thej' sang and worked, one of those 
black rattling thunderstorms which punctuate 
Cuba's rainj' season, came rolling up over the 
Santiago hills, and each time the sudden dark- 
ness was ripped by a lightning flash, the men 
could still be seen at their w'ork and could be 
heard roaring out their apostrophe to "The Star 
Spangled Banner" or putting the best harmonies 
that they knew to the staccato refrain of "Homo 
Sweet Home." 

As these men worked the other men on board 



The Fall of Santiago. 35 

the different vessels of the fleet were called out 
in obedience to a signal from the flagship that 
volunteers were wanted, and were told just what 
was to be done; that no compulsory detail would 
be made ; and that it must be from those wil- 
lingb' offering their services that the Merri- 
mac's last crew would be made up. There had 
been no attempt to veil the character of the en- 
terprise, in fact it was the policy of the admiral 
in this case to see that the full gravity of the 
plan was known all over the fleet. 

"When the demand for volunteers was therefore 
made the men knew that they were to steer an 
undefended, non-combatting ship into the very 
mouth of Santiago harbor. That no concealment 
of the vessel's presence was possible or was even 
contemplated. That every gun guarding Santi- 
ago that could be trained upon the Merrimac 
would be pointed and fired at her. That — for 
such was the idea then — she would be in point- 
blank range of the great rapid firing Maxim- 
Nordenfeldt guns supposed to beatMorro; of 
the whole of the Socapa battery, of the Hontorias 
and long bronzes at Punta Gorda, of the guns 
reputed to be at Cayo Smith — the island which 
stands at the inner end of the harbor entrance, 
and of all the cannon, big and little, that were 
believed to have been placed at every vantage 



86 The Fall of Santiago 



O"^ 



X 



point about the harbor's mouth — that, in fact, 
she would be the target for roore j^aud heavier 
guns than were trained on Cardigan's light 
cavalry at Balaklava, They believed that their 
chances of destruction were in the proportion of 
one thousand to one of escape ; that death was the 
programme and that escape would be the miracle. / 
They believed that not only did certain annihila- 
tion menace them from all around, but that they 
were to travel to destruction on a vehicle which 
they themselves had, at the critical instant, to 
destroy. That if by God's mercy they did get 
into the channel to that point where it was in- 
tended she should lie as a barrier, they were to 
sink what remained of their craft instantly and 
effectually, and ^then to save themselves as best 
they could by the lifeboat or raft. They be- 
lieved, granting, still by God's mercy, they had 
sunk the Merrimac where she should be sunk and 
had got on board their frail means of escape, that 
they would be still subjected to the hail of shot 
from the batteries. They knew and believed all 
of these things, yet when volunteers were asked 
for — six were wanted — it was not from twice 
or even ten times six that the selection had to 
be made. 

Every man in the fleet warded to go. 

In actual figures one hundred and fifty-three 



The Fall of Santiago. 37 

men volunteered from the Iowa, one hundred and 
forty from the Texas, one hundred and forty- 
nine from tbe flagship— men and officers crowd- 
ing forward and pleading to be allowed a chance 
not to do or die, but to do and die— so many in 
literal fact that had all been accepted there would 
not have been a working crew left on board a 
single ship. 

The men who were selected out of the pushing, 
crowding, shouting body of volunteers were: 
gunner's-mate Philip O'Boyle of the Texas; 
gun-captain Mill of the New Orleans; seaman 
Anderson of the Massachusetts seaman Wade; 
of the Vixen; two of the Merrimac's men and 
Hobson. The Vixen, when the selection had 
been made, steamed about the fleet picking up 
the men and then headed for the Merrimac with 
the double purpose of putting the volunteers on 
board and taking off the collier's crew. 

And here an odd thing came to pass. Com- 
mander Miller, of the Merrimac, and the crew of 
the Merrimac rebelled. They were in charge of 
the ship they said, and if there was anything to 
be done with the old craft that was better than 
slinging coal, any chance of distinguishing them- 
selves, it was but right and fair they should have 
the benefit of that chance. They could run the 
Merrimac, they could sink her, and they could die 



38 The Fall of Santiago. 

just as well as any one else. < It was the insubor- 
dination of devotion, the disobedience of hero- 
ism. \ So pertinacious in their determination 
were the Merrimac's men, indeed, that they 
would not and did not leave her until the 
admiral had sent a sharp command to vacate, 
and then they left growling and swearing at 
being driven back to the ordinary risks of war. 

At midnight Admiral Sampson went on board 
the Merrimac to inspect the arrangements, said 
they were excellent, and left with the full inten- 
tion of having the vessel go in by daybreak that 
morning, Thursday, June 2. The tide, however, 
did not exactly serve and the admiral decided to 
postpone the attempt until the next night. 
Word was sent to Hobson to this effect, Hobson 
sending back the message : 

"Mr. Hobson 's compliments to the admiral, 
and he requests that he be allowed to make the 
attempt now, feeling certain that he can 
succeed." 

To this the admiral sent reply, "Wait until 
to-morrow," and so far as postponement went, 
that ended it. The plans were not changed, 
although the postponement brought about a 
change in the people. Hobson remained, but it 
was considered by the head judges of character 
that the first batch of volunteers had undergone 



The Fall of Santiago. 39 

too great a strain by the long wait without com- 
pensating event, and so they were sent back to 
their ships as wretched and broken-hearted a set of 
men as ever had their lives given back to them. 
Again, came the mustering for volunteers, again, 
the scenes of enthusiasm, and again, the selection 
of the little band of volunteers. The octette of 
immortals wore those : 

Hobson, of course; George Charette, gunner's- 
mateof the flagship New York; Osborn Diegnan, 
coxswain of the Merrimac; George F. Phillips, 
machinist of the Merrimac; Francis Kelly, water- 
tender of the Merrimac; Daniel Montague, 
master-at-arms of the Brooklyn ; J. C. Murphy, 
coxswain of the Iowa; and Eandolph Cranson, 
coxswain of the New York. 

Six men only were chosen as before, but Cran- 
son dropped down in the darkness to the Merri- 
mac and hid in the hold. When this remarkable 
stowaway was discovered it was too late to send 
him back and he was allowed to stay. 

The Merrimac's old officers and men having 
been sent to the Texas in growling discontent, 
and the new volunteers being safely on board 
the collier, she lay alongside the flagship in 
order to receive final instructions. So that Hob- 
son and his men might be relieved of all work 
except the great task of running his vessel 



40 The Fall of Santiago. 

through the gauntlet of flame and shot, a pilot 
was detailed to give Hobsou the steerway up to 
the harbor entrance, and a special crew of forty 
volunteers was sent on board to work her to that 
point where the pilot was to leave and the Merri- 
mac was to take her final run. 

As the afternoon wore on another great thun- 
derstorm came up, but with sunset came a quiet 

skies clearing where they had been black and 

riven by lightning, and seas running smoothly 
where they had been whipped and torn by the 
fierce gusts of wind, and the cascades of water 
that always accompany these sub-tropical sum- 
mer storms. Hobson came onboard the flagship 
about nightfall to see the admiral. He was iu 
full uniform, but as he had been crawling around 
through the bulkheads of the collier and person- 
ally inspecting the layout of the torpedoes and 
the unshipping of the sea valves, he was in a 
condition of grime that passes description. He 
started to apologize, but the admiral stopped 
him. 

"Every soot spot is a service mark, Mr. Hob- 
son," he said. 

I Hobson was told that Naval Cadet Joseph 
Wright Powell, a slip of a fellow from Oswego, 
N. Y., would follow the Merrimac in the New 
York's launch and pick them up, on which he 
turned to the cadet and said : 



The Fall of Santiago. 41 



o^ 



*'Powell, Avatcb the boat's crew when we pull 
out of the harbor. We will be cracks rowing 
thirty strokes to the minute." 

He had not been told, however, that there had 
been almost as fierce a fight for the command of 
the launch as there had been for a position in the 
Merrimac's forlorn hope ; that the contest, which 
had almost developed into a scrimmage, had nar- 
rowed down to an issue between Cadets Palmer 
and Powell, and that these two had settled the 
matter by drawing cigarettes from a box, he 
who drew the last being the man to go. When 
Hobson in all his grime and in the full knowl- 
edge of what he had to face left the admiral to 
go on board the Merrimac, the officers and men 
all crowded round to shake him by the hand and 
wish him a God's blessing. It was noted by 
those who did get at his hand and who could 
look closely into his face, that there was not the 
faintest assumption in his demeanor that he was 
going to do something great and unusual, but 
the simple, quiet bearing and the unaffected tem- 
perature of a man who had a duty to do and who 
was not in the habit of letting his duty interfere 
with his heartbeat. 

Night came and with it a moon that silvered 
the hills around Santiago, but which left the 
harbor mouth in deep shadow. The fleet with- 



42 The Fall of Santiago, 

drew to about six miles from sliore forming a 
crescent, leaving in the center of its arc the Mer- 
rimac. When last seen by the fleet's men Hob- 
son was standing on the collier's bridge talk- 
ing to the pilot. The subsidary crew was at its 
post and in its usual garb, but Hobson's aspecial 
men were grouped underneath the bridge and 
were stripped to their underclothing. Midnight 
was sounded on the fleet bells, then the first 
three morning hours, and still no signal from 
the admiral for the Merrimac to move. 

At last, at twenty-five minutes past three of 
Friday, June 3, the lamp signals to start were 
run up and the Merrimac began to move. If 
eyes had been strained to see the last of Hobson, 
they were strained doubly now to see the last of 
the Merrimac. It was the pilot's duty to run 
the collier into such a position that it meant a 
clear straight- away dash to the harbor entrance, 
but to the strung senses of the watchers every- 
thing appeared to be going wrong, and as 
though fate were determined to give Hobson and 
his men every possible wrench. The Merrimac 
was seen to flutter, as it were, for a moment, and 
it was thought that she was off her course. Then 
she was seen again running and then to stop. 
This time it was made out that she was properly 
headed and that the pilot and subsidiary crew 
were leaving her. 



The Fall of Santiago. 43 



'&^ 



So quiet was the night and so still was every 
one keeping that through her open ports and 
hatchways could be heard the jingle of the Mer- 
rimac's engine-room bell, and as it was heard the 
smoke was seen to come tumbling out of her 
funnel as she jumped ahead. Then the fleet saw 
her no more, for she had entered the great 
shadows of the harbor hills. 

The light of El Morro burned bright but quiet, 
and as it was not swept over the arc of the en- 
trance the watchers imagined for one wild 
moment that the Merrimac might have slipped 
by the forts unobserved, but scarcely had this 
hope been formed when from out the eastern side 
there came an arrow of flame, and with this 
signal flash and following roai*, the hills on each 
side of the harbor became volcanoes. 

By Cadet Powell, in charge of the launch, act- 
ing as life saver, it was calculated that Hobsou 
had got to within three hundred yards of the 
entrance before the first shore gun was fired, and 
to his wrought-up fancy it seemed that not even 
in a bombardment from the fleet had he seen such 
a screaming, flashing, continuous fire as that 
which followed the Spanish gunner's discovery 
of the Merrimac. 

Certainly the water about the collier was white 
with foam as though it had been whipped with 



44 The Fall of Santiago. 

a hail storm, -while to the plunging fire of the 
batteries was added the continuous rattle of the 
garrison's musketry. Powell held it to be abso- 
lutely impossible for the Merrimac even to 
advance in the face of such a reception, much 
less live, but on she plowed through it all until, 
just as she had been lost to the view of the fleet 
in the shadow of the cliffs, so, she was lost to 
Powell's view as she dashed in between them. 

Then above the scream and roar of the guns 
and the snap and whistle of the rifles came five 
thunder claps that drowned all the Spaniard's 
noise and the fleet knew either that she had been 
blown up by mines, or at least, one man had 
lived through it all and had touched off the 
battery. 

Then a silence where there had been such an 
uproar and nothing seen until a quarter past five, 
when Powell's launch was discovered steaming 
out from the shore followed by a new clatter and 
shrieking from the Spanish forts as they picked 
up this little craft and did their best to blow her 
into matchwood. But she raced safely to the 
shelter of the flagship's drab sides, although it 
was to bring the sad report that "No one had 
come out of the entrance to the harbor." No 
one had supposed that Powell would save a single 
member of the Merrimac's men or that any one 



The Fall of Santiago. 45 

would be left to save. So Powell's report was 
simply looked ou as one of the incidents in the 
inevitable catastrophe. 

But no, Hobson had not only measurably done 
what he started to do, he had done it without los- 
ing a man, and almost without a scratch. Eiddled 
like a sieve as she was he had pushed the Merri- 
mac past the forts, over the mines, two of which 
exploded, and had driven her staggering right to 
the selected spot and then, while shot and shell 
plowed and plunged about them, each man had 
done his particular duty as though fear or haste, 
or need to haste were unknown quantities. 

The anchor lines were cut, the two anchors 
flew down bringing the ship up with a jerk as 
their flukes caught below, and then, as the tide 
swung her round in the channel, the valves were 
opened, engines stopped, and with three bellow- 
ing crashes and three rending staggering blows 
at her sides, that number of torpedoes was ex- 
ploded and the Merrimao settled in ninety 
seconds and in thirty feet of water. 

The whaleboat had been blown to pieces but 
the catamaran was saved, and on this Hobson 
and his men leaped just before the ship began to 
settle. There was no chance for them to get into 
the open sea and so Hobson, characteristically, 
decided to make for the Spanish shore. As the 



46 The Fall of Santiago. 

Spanish gunners saw the raft put off from the 
sinking hulk they forbore to fire, and when the 
men reached shore the Spanish gunners shook 
hands with them and patted them on the back. 
And when they were marched as prisoners to 
Cervera, the Spanish admiral not only shook 
hands with them and patted them on the back, 
but embraced the quiet Alabamian and told him 
that he was a man after his own heart. 

More than this, he sent Captain Oviedo, his 
chief of staff, out to Admiral Sampson with a flag 
of truce and a long message of compliments, a 
report of what had been accomplished, all done 
as an act of appreciation shown by one sailor to 
another sailor concerning the brave act of still 
another sailor. 

And so it was learned that what Hobson 

had started out to do ho had done. He had 

done it with nothing more than the hope that he 

might be allowed to live long enough to sink his 

/'ship, but to him and to the brave men who were 

' with him there had come that sheltering hand 

J that seems always extended over those who, with 

clear heads and calm souls, go steadfastly along 

\ their lines of duty. 

Neither the entities of history nor of narrative 
will be destroyed if it is told here how "with 
weeping and with laughter" flobson and his fel- 



The Fall of Santiago. 47 

low heroes came into the American lines July 6. 
It had been supposed, in view of Admiral Cer- 
vera's extreme courteousuess toward the con- 
structor, that an exchange of the Merrimac's men 
might easily be effected. Such was not the case, 
however, and after dallying negotiations which 
were carried limpingly around the circle from 
Blanco to Washington, and from Washington to 
Madrid, from Madrid to Santiago and thence to 
Havana again, the matter came to a standstill. 

It happened, however, that at the battle of El 
Caney we had captured, among many others, a 
Lieutenant Arios, of the aristocratic Barcelona 
regiment, and with Arios and his fellow-oihcers 
in our hands we were able effectually to treat for 
an exchange. On tho morning of July 6, a 
meeting took place under a tree midway between 
the lines of the Rough Riders and those of the 
first Spanish intrenchments. Colonel John 
Jacob Astor conducted to this rendezvous three 
Lieutenants Volez, Aurolius, and Arios, besides 
fourteen sergeants, corporals and privates. 
Hobson and his men came out under charge of 
Major Tries, a Spanish staff officer. The Spanish 
prisoners were kept blindfolded until they 
reached the point of exchange; the eyes of the 
American prisoners wereuubaudaged. Irieswas 
told that he might have all fourteen of the men 



V 



48 The Fall of Santiago. 

and his choice of the officers. Without hesita- 
tion he chose the aristocrat. Then Colonel Astor 
put out hia hand to Hobson saying : 

"My name is Astor, and I'm mighty glad to 
welcome j'ou back to freedom." 

"Thank you, colonel," replied the Alabamiau, 
"if you are half as glad as I am to get back, 
there is no question as to the warmth of your 
welcome." 

Then the Spanish major and the American 
colonel looked at their watches, and seeing that 
the hour of truce, during which this little pacific 
interlude had been conducted, was on the point 
of expiring, bowed with Americo-Castilian 
politeness to each other and went back to their 
lines. 

If Hobson had been of the stiiff that is puffed 
into bullfrog uselessness he would surely have 
been spoiled by the reception which his fighting 
compatriots accorded him from the first intrench- 
ment to the last vessel of the fleet. The Rough 
Eiders, cowboys and college men, swarmed out of 
the trenches and over the guns yelling like Com- 
anches; swept them off their feet and bore them 
on their shoulders inside the lines. Then the 
colored troopers swarmed about and the Alabama 
white shook hands with the Georgia black as 
though slave days had ended five centuries ago ; 



The Fall of Santiafs:©. 49 



o" 



every soldier who knew what was going on 
yelled as though he had personally secured free- 
dom from a Spanish cell ; the wounded in the 
hospital at Siboney sat up in their cots and 
cheered, and when the launch bearing the re- 
leased prisoners put off from Daiquiri in the dusk 
of the evening and made for the Now York, every 
ship's whistle tooted and every ship's men 

• cheered, and even Admiral Sampson stepped over 
his habitual reserve and embraced Hobson with 
almost as much effusion as had the Spanish 
admiral. 

^ Hobson 's story, a characteristically simple 
one, cleared up many points that had been in 
doubt. He said that he and his associates had 
been confined in Morro Castle but four days, 
being removed thence on board the Reina Mer- 
cedes which the Spanish were using as a hospital 
ship. The kind greeting which Cervera had 
granted them bore its fruit and during the 
whole thirty-three days of their incarceration 
their treatment by the Spanish was most cour- 
teous. 

It was not a keen sighted gunner, as had been 
supposed, who first caught a glimpse of the 
Merrimac stealing into Santiago, but a patrol 
boat which ran close up under the stern of the 
Merrimac and fired several shots at her from a 



50 The Fall of Santiago. 

three-pouuder. In this fire the Merrimac'a rud- 
der was carried away. The picket boat at once 
gave the alarm and in a moment the guns of the 
Vizcaya, Almiraute Oqueudo and shore Latteries 
were turned upon the collier, while sub-marine 
mines and torpedoes grumbled and exploded all 
about her. 

When the Merrimac was in the desired posi- 
tion and the attempt was made to throw her 
across the channel the loss of the rudder was 
discovered. It was not possible therefore, to do 
this, but the anchors were thrown out and the 
tide swung her so that she blocked the passage- 
way for some three-quarters of it. As the 
anchors were dropped the catamaran was 
launched and Hobson touched off the battery. 
At that same moment two torpedoes, fired by the 
Keiua Mercedes, struck the Merrimac amidships 
and in the combined shock the collier was lifted 
out of the water and almost rent asunder. 

It is worthy of remark that one of the first 
acts of Hobson after his return to the New York 
was a request to the admiral that he might be 
allowed to take a battleship into the harbor, 
claiming that the shore fortifications were not 
nearly as formidable as was supposed. Quite as 
characteristically, Sampson concluded that his 
policy of long distance bombardment was better 
than the constructor's plan of venture and dash. 



The Fall of Santiago. 51 



CHAPTER III. 

HOW THE MARINES FOUGHT AT GUANTANAMO. 

The whole campaign at Santiago was so full of 
spectacular effects and valiant deeds, done in- 
dividually and collectively, that what would 
under ordinary circumstances mark an epoch, 
becomes but an incident in the revival of 
America's military spirit. Treading close on the 
heels of Hobson's exploit, for instance, came 
Huntington's defense of Fisherman's Point at 
Guantanamo Bay, leading up to the first battle 
on Cuban soil, and of which some future his- 
torian will make a book. 

With Cervera at Santiago, the seat of war in 
the West Indies, as has been said, was suddenly 
and distinctively removed to that port. It 
meant the determination to destroy the Spanish 
admiral's fleet together with the city's invest- 
ment by sea and land, and our government at 
once set to work to dispatch the beleaguering 
forces southward. But the mobilization and 
transport of an invading army, especially when 
that army is to enter on a tropical campaign and 



52 The Fall of Santiago. 

has been raised from the basis of a citizen 
soldiery, is a task whose rapid and successful 
accomplishment should mean the canonization of 
the quartermaster-general. In every such en- 
terprise some bureau, some group of men, is sure 
to be ahead of the others — to form a sort of pro- 
cess on the body military, so to speak. In this 
case it was Lieutenant Colonel Eobert "W. Hunt- 
ington and his six hundred marines, who for 
weeks had been cramped and packed on the 
sweltering decks of the troop ship Panther off 
Tampa, before her commander received instruc- 
tions to weigh anchor and report to Sampson off 
Santiago. 

It was at ten o'clock on Friday morning, June 
10, that the troop ship under convoy of the Yo- 
semite steamed up to the blockading fleet and half 
an hour later she had put about for Guantanamo 
to land her marines. The place had been selected 
as a base of operations and supplies, and, topo- 
graphically it was an ideal selection. The harbor 
of Guantanamo is one of the best on the south 
coast of Cuba. It lies thirty-eight miles east of 
Santiago, the town and fort being situated about 
five miles back from the coast. There are no 
established fortifications to speak of at the en- 
trance to the harbor, but prior to the arrival of 
the Panther's men, the Spaniards — who kept 




Guantanamo Bay and its surrounding — Where Huntington's marines esta^jlished tlie rirst 
United States military camp in Cuba. 



The Fall of Santiago. 53 

singularly well iuformed as to our intended 
movements — bad thrown up earthworks and dug 
rifle pits from which to command this entrance. 
Here, in order to understand what follows, it 
will be necessary to gain as clear an idea as possi- 
ble of the lay of the land. 

Looking shoreward from on board ship you 
would see to the west, that is to the left of the 
entrance, a rather extensive strip of low lying, 
swampy ground. To the right is a sandy stretch 
covered with bushes and cacti from which rises 
the shoulder of a range of steep, almost precipi- 
tous, rocky hills running parallel with the shore 
and ending in a lagoon. Up and down the face 
of the hills are jutting rocks and patches of faded 
vegetation, while at their base on the little rocky 
ledge or beach is, or was, a straggling collection 
of fishermen's huts, one or two stores, and the 
distinctively clean looking cable office. Between 
the swampy lowland of the west and the cliff- 
like hills of the east lay spread out the curving 
waterway into Guantanamo harbor. On the 
bare, brown summit of a bluff which formed a 
step of the cliff and in caves in the cliff itself, 
the Spaniards had placed their earthworks and 
rifle pits and out of these earthworks and rifle 
pits. Captain McCalla had driven them on the 
day before with the guns of the Marblehead. 



54 The Fall of Santiago. 

If you landed and toiled up one of the steep 
zig-zag trails until you stood on tbe top of the 
blulf beside tbe deserted earthworks and looked 
inland you would see that the shore mountains 
really comprised three distinct, heavily-wooded 
ranges of a gradually increasing elevation and 
with equally heavily-wooded gullies between the 
ridges. Back of the ridges stretched out the 
flat lauds around the upper end of the bay on 
which it set down the city of Guantauamo. 
Looking across the bay you would see the village 
and fort of Caimanera and the railroad running 
up to Guantanamo. 

When the Panther reached Guantanamo bay 
the fishing village and its defenses were found to 
be deserted alike by fishermen and soldiers. 
The marines were all landed, in quick and easy 
order, running and cheering and stretching 
their legs like a lot of schoolboys at recess. 
Then they lugged their equipage up the trails to 
the breezy bluff, where they pitched their tents, 
established camp and named it after the com- 
mander of the Marblehead. The Spaniards had 
left a flagpole and just before sunset, while the 
shore detail was burning up the wretched little 
village below, as the most convenient form of 
fumigating the locality, the Stars and Stripes 
were run up at Camp McCalla, the main body of 



The Fall of Santiago. 55 

mariue* was drawn up in line and the first estab- 
lishment of United States troops on Cuban soil 
was greeted with cheers from above and below, 
and by a salute from the little fleet lying in the 
r roadstead. Then the men sang and ate and 
\ frolicked and at ten o'clock the camp, save for 
j the sentries, was as quiet as a wood in winter. 
C The quiet lasted just two houi-s, for everybody 
agreed that it was midnight, when, instead of six 
hundred sleeping men there were six hundred 
swearing marines startled into half-wakefulness 
by a shot, a sentry's challenge and then a crack- 
ing volley. If the first moment was one of half- 
wakefulness, the second was one of complete 
activity, and in two minutes the rifles of the 
marines were all vigorously replying to the crack 
and splutter of the Spanish Mausers that came, 
or seemed to come from the chaparral-covered 
slopes to the east. The long Mauser bullets were 
singing over the marines' heads, but no one was 
hit and as the hail from the Lees battered the 
brush which concealed the Spaniards, the firing 
from the thicket soon lessened. 

It did not, however, cease and all that night 
Huntington's men were kept awake and on the 
jump by single shots and volleys from the 
guerrillas. Neither was there any rest for the 
marines during daylight on Saturday. The 



5G The Full of Santiago. 

volloy firing ceased, it is true, but tLe camp was 
made the center for one of the roost aggravating 
and nerve-destroying forms of attack of which 
it is possible to conceive. 

Untried, absolutely inexperienced in any form 
of land fighting, all the marines had to fall back 
on was the discipline of drill and individual grit. 
But in no tactics had they ever come across any- 
thing that met the exigencies of the present occa- 
sion. Nearly all town-bred, conscious that at all 
times they were regarded as a sort of marine 
police, they found themselves suddenly called on 
to bear the brunt of an attack so harassing and 
unusual that to meet it would have called up all 
the experience and cunning of our plain and 
' lava-bed fighters. Instead of fighting the Spanish 
troops in Cuba the Panther's men might really 
have been fighting the Sioux in the Bad Lands 
; of South Dakota. Like the half-blind man in the 
! Bible they saw men as trees walking, for the 
Spaniards, stripping themselves to the buff re- 
clothed themselves with the Adamic garb of 
loaves, and, gently waving palm trees over their 
heads, crept stealthily here and there until a 
tongue of fire and a singing bullet showed that 
. instead of a piece of tropical vegetation it was a 
1 Spanish sharp-shooter. Not only were the Span- 
! iards masked but they were, undoubtedly, under 



The Fall of Santiago. 6l 

the very prince of guerrilla fighters; one "who, to 
the cunning- of the Indian added the cruelty of 
the Inquisitorial Spaniard. Silenced at one 
point, the bushwhackers would break out into 
furious firing from another; then, when all the 
bush seemed to have been battered into silence 
by the marines, the rifle fire would blaze out 
from a hundred points at once. 

Although under this scattering but persistent 
fire from the Spaniards all day, Huntington kept 
his men at work strengthening the earthworks, 
digging new rifle pits, and dragging up the bat- 
talion's field-pieces from the beach, and when 
Saturday night came the marines were ready 
enough to bless their commander for his pre- 
science and discipline. Sleep was absolutely out 
of the question. All through the night, shadowy 
figures could be dimly seen creeping through the 
edge of the bush that rose around the camp. 
There was the constant, tense, singing note of 
the Mauser balls following the sharp pop of the 
Spanish rifles ; the humming deeper note of the 
Lee bullets following the louder ring of the 
marines' weapons; while, as the result of a coun- 
sel between Huntington, Philip and McCalla, the 
Texas and Marblehead added their deeper note 
to the serenade. The warships swung their 
searchlights on to the bush, and sent in their 



68 The Fall of Santiago, 

launches with orders to let fly their howitzers 
at any illuminated spot that showed a Spaniard 
as a blot in its cone of light. 

It was all decidedly iiicturesque, but neither 
the searchlights nor the howitzers of the 
launches, nor the constant blazing of the 
marines at anj-thing that seemed to suspiciously 
move in the undergrowth brought any relief to 
Camp McCalla. As a desperate resort a detail 
of men was sent out to set fire to the jungle, but 
this proved impossible on account of the lush 
young trees which formed the undergrowth. 
While the attempt was being made to smoke out 
the guerrillas from the nearest slope, the Span- 
iards appeared in the bush across the lagoon to 
the east of the camp. They were driven thence 
by the searchlights of the Marblehead and the 
clever drop of a few screeching shells only to 
appear in a ravine on the east side near the bay 
shore. And so it went on all night, until from 
want of sleep, because of the long fight with 
shadows, and from a night of noise unspeakable 

; the men, when dajdight struck them, looked as 
haggard as though they had camped for a fort- 

; night in a stable of nightmares. 

There had been men killed, too. Not manj^ it 
is true, not one per cent of what would have 
been the result had the Spaniards' aim ap- 



The Fall of Santiago. 59 

proacbed in accuracy the cleverness of their 
tactics. Those who had been killed and wounded 
had been shot down almost at the rifle's muz- 
zle, and so horrible were the effects of the fierce 
wire nails of the Mausers at this distance that it 
was supposed at first the Spaniards had been 
guilty of unutterable mutilations. 

For the first time our surgeons were able to 
make a close study of what a Mauser rifle-shot 
wound was like. To their reports the curious 
student of the horrors of modern warfare is re- 
ferred. All that need be said here is that the 
dead and wounded in the fighting around Guan- 
tauamo bay showed that the Mauser bullet when 
received at close range makes at its point of en- 
trance only a small hole, but at its point of exit 
it seems to take everything with it. In size the 
bullet is as the section of an ordinary lead pencil 
one and a half inches long. It is nickel covered, 
but while the charges of mutilation, which Ad- 
miral Sampson laid against the Spaniards when he 
saw the dreadful character of the men's wounds, 
were withdrawn, the evidence would seem to show 
that in some cases the nickel points of the bul- 
lets had been scraped away. The result was 
that the exposed lead mushroomed on its impact 
and when to this spreading quality of the missile 
was added its rotary motion, the resulting 



60 The Fall of Santiago. 

wound, as may be imagined, was a frightful one. 
Those killed at Guantanamo and struck in the 
head would have been scarcely more shattered 
had they stood in the path of a shell. 

The marines saw these things, and they saw, 
too, that their camp on the bluff, breezy though 
it might be, was, on account of the thickly 
wooded hills around it and its own baroness, 
little more than a target for the Spanish bush- 
whackers. Huntington saw this also, and when 
Sunday morning came he decided to move camp 
to the landing-place on Fisherman's Point. 
McCalla sent sixty-live Cuban insurgents, and 
Philip added a squad of blue jackets and two 
Colt automatic guns to assist in the moving. 
Instead of being a day of rest it was a day of 
din, distress and desperation. The Spaniards 
swarmed througli the bushes and every move 
made by the marines was under a hot fire. In 
the midst of it those who had been killed, in- 
cluding Assistant Surgeon Gibbs, had to be 
buried, but the same spirit that prompted the 
scraping of the Mauser bullet and the shooting 
of a noncombatant under the shadow of the 
Eed Cross stood out ferociously even here. 

Graves were dug in the red, stony soil of the 
bluff to the north of the camp and a squad of 
marines was sent ashore from the Texas to act as 




m 




The Fall of Santiago. 61 

funeral escort, Huntington's marines being too 
busy in the diverse labors of moving camp and 
potting tliG Spanish bushwhackers. About the 
time the little procession, headed by Chaplain 
Jones of the Texas, had stumbled over the rocky 
ground to the improvised graveyard, the firing 
from the bush slackened sufficiently for the men 
of Camp McCalla to look around. They saw 
this little procession, and laying down fheir Lees 
in the trenches, stepped over and fell in after the 
Texas men. No sooner had they done this than 
the skulking Spaniards turned a hot fire on the 
funeral party. For a moment or two chaplain, 
escort, and marines paid no attention to the fusil- 
lade, but grouped themselves about the open 
graves, the chaplain, it is true, stepping behind 
the mounds of new turned earth, but without 
dropping a word of the service. The sad little 
ceremony would have been concluded with this 
attendance had not the Spaniards crept in force 
up to the nearest clumps of bushes from which 
the bullets were so persistently whistled that 
chaplain, mourners and corpses alike seemed in 
danger of being riddled. 

This was too much for the men of Camp 
McCalla, and with a cry of "Fall in," they 
rushed for their rifles in the trenches. As they 
broke away from the funeral they had begun the 



62 Tlie Fall of Santiago. 

intoning of the Lord's Prayer, and it was ■with- 
out ceasing the full-throated intercession that, 
throwing themselves flat, they pegged fiercely 
away at the hidden and pitiless enemy. The 
pump of the Lee bullets was as rhythmical as 
the intoned phrases. (It was a praj^er punctuated 
, with gunshots, and was only another instance of 
< the Puritan spirit — ^the spirit of the Bible and 
J sword carried hand to hand into battle — that 
I marked this whole campaign. \ The ships in the 
bay sniffed the contest from afar and turned 
loose their shells and machine guns, and it was 
to this martial accompaniment that the dead were 
buried. Chaplain Jones committing his brethren 
to the ground without a break in his sonorous 
voice, and without a cringe in his long, thin 
form as he stood full in the strong sunlight. 

Although the camp was moved to the beach, 
the intrenchments on the hilltop were not de- 
serted. The American flag had been planted on 
the site of the destroyed blockhouse, and it was 
not to b,e taken down or forsaken. New trenches 
were dug and the defending guns better placed. 
Still the attacks from the bush were maintained, 
varied now by dashes on the beach camp from 
the chaparral growing around the eastern lagoon. 
More men were killed and the constant drag and 
Hirain were visibly telling on the marines. It 



The Fall of Santiago. 63 

was very evident that something had to be done 
to break this dreadful monotony of fighting hid- 
den foes. A retreat was out of the question, and 
so it was decided to make at onco a sortie and a 
round up. 

How strong the Spaniards might be was not 
known, the Ciiban scouts bringing in estimates 
that varied from two hundred to two thousand, 
but it was known that constant accessions to the 
army of bushwhackers were being ferried across 
the bay from Caimanera, and that unless some 
bold movement were made the first American 
garrison in Cuba stood a very good chance of 
being shot out of existence or driven into the 
sea. 

Roughly speaking, the Spaniards held the 
three ranges of hills, before alluded to, and 
which were like three fingers with two deep 
valleys between, like the hollows between the 
fingers. On the first ridge stood a heliograph 
station ; on a mound commanding the first and 
second ridges stood a blockhouse; and between 
the second and third ridges was a well, or water 
tank, around which had been established the 
guerrilla headquarters. All three, heliograph 
station, blockhouse, and well, were to be the 
objects of attack, for it was argued that with their 
signal station, their stronghold, and their water 



64 The Fall of Santiao^o. 



■&^ 



supply goiie, the biisliwhackers would find them- 
selves deprived of their three mainstays. 

That the enterprise might prove a failure never 
entered the heads of Huntington and his officers. 
The woods had to be purged of the Spaniards. 
That was the simple programme. 

Early on Tuesday morning, June 14, two hun- 
dred and eighty-nine Americans, and forty-one 
Cubans were dravv-n up at Fisherman's Point 
ready for the desperate expedition. The men 
were divided into four companies. Captains 
Elliott and Spicer each had ninety marines and 
fifteen Cubans in his party. Lieutenants 
Mahoney and In gate each had fifty marines in 
his command, Mahoney Laving ten Cubans and 
Ingate one, this latter to act as guide. The 
Ingate party can be very briefly disposed of. 
Its contemplated share in the operations was to 
skirt the first range of hills eastward until it 
came to the lagoon and then turn northward, 
that is inhuid way, so as to be able to attack the 
guerrilla headquarters from the flank while the 
other parties were attacking it from the front. 
Long before the flank movement could be exe- 
cuted, however, Ingate grew suspicious of his 
Cuban guide and turned back. Elliott and 
Spicer were to make objectivelj' for the Spanish 
headquarters, while Mahoney 's line of advance 



The Fall of Santiago. G5 

was between that of these two captains and that 
of Ingate, with the capture of the heliograph 
station and blockhouse as a preliminary duty. 
The Cubans were to act as scouts and bush- 
beaters. 

The marines were inspected as scrutinizingly 
as though they were to parade; the Cubans 
hopped spasmodically about without any sem- 
blance of order or preparation. The marines 
were clad in their brown uniforms, as speckless 
as though just from the factory; the Cubans wore 
what the sailors had given them, what rags they 
had owned, or nothing, as the fancy suited them. 
The faces of the marines were drawn, bronzed, 
rather wistful and decidedly determined; those 
of the Cubans were mostly black and were agleam 
with satisfaction and pride at having a chance to 
show the Americans what they could do in fight- 
ing the Spanish. 

There was a sharp call of order and then the 
lines of brown, white and black men began to 
climb up the steep tangled sides of the first ridge. 
Mahouey's men were first at work. They found 
the heliograph station guarded by a company of 
Spaniards and there was immediately the song 
in unison of Lee and Mauser. The Spaniards 
had been waiting the attack while the marines 
had been toiling through the tangle of woods 



66 The Fall of Santiago. 

under a broilini^ sun, but when witbin shooting 
range our men went to work at once as steadily 
and sturdily as though they had been the waiting 
party. Fifteen minutes of this brisk, deadly 
work and the Spaniards tied helter-skelter down 
the inland slope of the first range, where they 
were joined by the fleeing garrison of the block- 
house, while the marines knelt along the ridge 
and picked off the fleeing men as they ran or 
dodged from bush to bush. 

Meanwhile Elliott and Spicer's men to the 
west but moving northward had crossed the 
first ridge, tramped across the gully, and 
climbed to the top of the second ridge under 
a spattering but wild fire of the Spaniards who 
were stationed here. When our men reached 
the summit of the second ridge the sun was blaz- 
ing at high noon, the water in their canteens was 
a sickly warm fluid and the jungle through which 
they had come was so full of thorny cactus and 
tearing mesquite that each step was a struggle. 
Yet when our men reached this crest and saw the 
guerrilla headquarters in the valley beneath, a 
new spirit of freshness took possession of them. 
Plainly in view, in the valley before them were 
the huts of the men, the ofiicer's quarters and 
the water tank which they had set out to destroy. 
The marines and Cubans had scrambled up the 



The Fall of Santiago. 67 

ridge on which they now stood in single order 
and as best they might, but when once there the 
hundred and eighty marines and the thirty 
Cubans were formed in line along the crest, with 
the Cubans on the left flank and then began to 
slowly work their way down, firing as they went. 
The long brown and white line moved steadily 
down the slope, aiming and firing as it moved, 
with the Spaniards' bullets whistling viciously 
all about it. The guerrillas fired from the shelter 
of the huts and other buildings so that they really 
had the advantage of an intrenched position, but 
the marines never wavered in their advance. 

Now they were at the base of the hill and the 
order was given to fix bayonets and charge across 
the gully. The gleam and click of the bayonets 
were too much for the Spaniards, and in a panic 
they left the shelter of the headquarters and 
made for the cover of the brush-clad slopes of 
the third ridge. Between the huts and brush, 
however, there was a clear space of about one 
hundred yards, and as the Spaniards galloped 
across this open space it was easy shooting for 
our men. Still in line they advanced, pouring a 
deadly fire into the guerrillas, while the Cubans 
waved their machetes and sprang forward with a 
howl. Still in line, the brown-clad marines 
made straight for the thickets into which the 



C8 The Fall of Santiago. 

Spaniards bad fled, Avbile the white and black 
clad Cubans ran and iired, and cursed as they 
ran. Out of the thickets the Spaniards darted, 
and as thej- darted the marines shot them down. 
Up the slopes the Spaniards climbed and strug- 
gled, while the marines climbed and struggled 
after them and fired as they climbed. Clear to 
the crest the Spaniards were driven, and then to 
their dismay another fighting force of these ter- 
rible Americans was met. 

After capturing the heliograph station and 
blockhouse Mahouey and his men had skirted the 
eastern end of the second and third ridges in an- 
ticipation of just what was happening so that when 
the terror-stricken Spaniards started to scamper 
down this third ridge Mahoney's fifty marines 
and ten Cubans were waiting for them. Back 
the Spaniards ran and as they scrambled once 
more on to the crest of the third ridge, still 
another enemy appeared. Huntington had taken 
counsel with the commander of the Dolphin, and 
that gunboat had been watching all the morning 
for just this opportunity. "With their glasses 
the Dolphin's ofiicers had been sweeping the 
hills for a good chance for a long shot and when 
the Spaniards appeared crowding the hilltop they 
knew they had that chance. Down dropped the 
shells in the midst of the dismayed Spaniards 



The Fall of Santiago. 69 

and again they rushed to the hillside. Again, 
Mahoney's men met them and as the Spaniards 
turned back again they were met by Captain 
Elliott's marines moving steadily up the slope 
and by the fierce assault of the Cubans. 

Three times over that terrible ridge were the 
Spanish guerrillas thus driven. With two 
musketry cross-fires, the assaults of the Cubans 
and the bursting of the shells as a composite hor- 
ror, the Spaniards finally made their disordered 
way down the further side of the last ridge and 
so into the shelter of the Guantauamo lowlands. 
The five days of persistent cruel bush attacks had 
been amply revenged. In the sortie two Cubans 
had been killed and one of our marines wounded, 
while of the Spanish some one hundred killed 
and wounded lay between the heliograph station 
and the last slope of the third ridge. To wind 
up the expedition the water tank and headquar- 
ters were destroyed, the blockhouse razed, eigh- 
teen prisoners captured, and a hundred rifles and 
a thousand rounds of ammunition brought back 
by the dripping, wearied, but triumphant, little 
army. 

It was not a very great affair, but barring the 
funny little Gussie expedition it was the first 
battle on Cuban soil between American and 
Spanish forces. Moreover, it was a fight between 



70 The Fall of Santiago. 

unseasoued, wearied men, fighting their way 
througli au enemy's country, and a much 
superior force of seasoned veterans holding a 
strong position. The odds had been all against 
us, but the honors were all ours. From Spanish 
sources it was afterward learned that the de- 
fenders of the hills included at least two com- 
panies of picked regulars and two companies of 
guerrillas, numbering in all four hundred and 
eighty men. The actual losses on the Spanish 
sides in the six days fighting cannot be stated, 
but they were approximately one hundred and 
fifty killed and wounded, while ours were five 
killed and fifteen wounded. 

Having driven the bushwhackers off the ridges 
and destroyed their rallying center, it was next 
decided to put a stop to the constant accession 
of reinforcements which had been received by 
the bushwhackers from Guantanamo by way 
of Caimauera. Every day new detachments 
of Spanish soldiers had been brought from 
the city by railroad to the fort and earthworks, 
and these it was decided to reduce. Accordingly 
on the day following the successful sweep of the 
marines over the hills, the Texas, Marblehead and 
Suwanee sailed into Guantanamo Bay, and from 
two until half-past three o'clock in the afternoon 
rained shells on the brickwork and intrench- 



The Fall of Santiago. Tl 

ments. At the end of this bombardment the fort 
was a brick pile and the trenches were little more 
than reddish-brown dirt heaps, while the garri- 
son, or such as was left of it, had taken train to 
Guantanamo. 

The infliction of these two blows taught the 
Spaniards their lesson, and from that time on the 
outer bay of Guantanamo and the hills overlook- 
ing Fisherman's Point were as placid and un- 
troubled as a summer resort. A varying number 
of colliers lay at anchor within Fisherman's 
Point, the Panther was anchored close beside the 
camp, the Solace rode in the smooth sheltered 
waters of the bay, the Marblehead, as flagship of 
the station, steamed here and there, the cable 
office was re-established and officially known 
as Pleya del Este, vessels from the block- 
ading squadron came and went, rowboats and 
launches moved rapidly about, no Spaniard 
was to be seen, and that which was the theater 
of a seven-days' continuous performance of 
unrest, distress and bloodshed became so peace- 
ful that the captured Spaniard's letter dolefully 
describing the American occupation of Guan- 
tanamo Bay as the matter of fact conversion of 
the place into "a harbor of rest" exactly fitted 
the transformation. 



V2 The Fall of Santiago. 



CHAPTER IV. 

HOW SHAFTER LANDED HIS ARMY AT DAIQUIRI. 

When Huntington's marines were landed at 
Guantanamo Bay it was in the expectation that 
the army of investment would reach Santiago 
almost immediately thereafter. It was three 
weeks, however, before the transports, with 
their fifteen thousand and odd American soldiers, 
were sighted by the blockading fleet. 

Major-General William Eufus Shafter, in com- 
mand of the Fifth Army Corps, had been selected 
to lead the army of invasion, and Tampa was 
chosen as the point of debarkation. As has been 
intimated, the dispatch of an army largely com- 
posed of unseasoned men is a task that might try 
the capabilities of a quartermaster's department 
accustomed to the active operations at homo and 
abroad of an enormous standing army ; but when 
it meant the sudden call upon a department used 
only to the gentle and easy demands of a tiny 
standing army accustomed only to garrison life 
and police duties on the plains, it became a matter 
whose exactions can scarcely be measured. 



The Fall of Santiago. 73 

The invading army consisted of the following 
forces : 

Infantry — 

Officers 561 

Enlisted men 10,709 

11,270 

Cavalry (Dismounted) — 

Officers 168 

Enlisted men 3,155 

3,323 

Artillery — 

Officers 18 

Enlisted men 455 

473 

Engineers — 

Officers 9 

Enlisted men 200 

209 

Signal Cokfs 15 

15,290 
Total Fighting Men — 

Officers . 747 

Enlisted men 14,319 

15,066 

Fieldpieces 24 

Horses 578 

Mules 1,301 

For throe weeks things at Tampa were chaotic. 
The water supply was short; machinery broke 
down ; siege guns had to be carried bodily for 
miles; embarkation stages had to be built; sup- 
ply trains were stalled; mules and horses that 
should have arrived had been left behind in some 
unknown locality ; troops were coming in from a 



74 The Fall of Santiago. 

dozen different camps in a dozen different stages 
of unpreparedness— such were a few of the 
tangles, drawbacks and diflQculties which had to 
be met, unraveled, and conquered before the 
great transport fleet could get on her way. 

Every one, from Shafter down, was in a fever- 
ish condition of fume and fret. The war fury of 
the soldiers was rapidly changing into one of 
weariness and disgust, while the foreign repre- 
sentatives who peered everywhere and watched 
everything, confided to their respective govern- 
ments that the army of invasion was an armed 
mob and that the quartermaster's department 
had gone to pieces. As a plain matter of fact, 
the work done in the way of licking raw material 
into shape, and in the arming, equipping, and 
forwarding of Shafter's army compared most 
favorably with anything done in the same line 
by nations who are adepts in the art of war. It 
was May 29 when Schley's dispatch was re- 
ceived saying that Cervera was in Santiago har- 
bor, and it was on the 14th of June that the 
army for Santiago sailed from Tampa, an inter- 
val of only sixteen days in which inventive 
spirit, Yankee push, and the indomitable con- 
quest of obstacles had done all that could have 
been accomplished by the practiced military ex- 
perts and well-oiled war bureaus of Europe. 



The Fall of Santiago. Y5 

There was impatience everywhere, of course; 
in the press, at headquarters in Washington, and 
with the blockading fleet. Every day the lookouts 
off Santiago watched for the smoke of the trans- 
port armada coming around Cape Maysi, and as 
each day closed with the report that there was 
nothing in sight, that impatience grew. Upon 
Admiral Sampson devolved not only the duty of 
pi-eventing the escape of Cervera's fleet, but also 
that of preventing if possible the junction of the 
various divisions of the Spanish army which were 
known to be scattered up and down the eastern 
end of the island and which he was sure would 
be making every effort to effect a concentration 
in Santiago city. Envoys were sent to General 
Calixto Garcia, asking him to move his forces of 
insurgents down to the southern coast so as to 
hold if possible the passes leading from Mau- 
zanillo and Holquin through which the various 
Spanish garrisons would have to come. To this 
Garcia replied by sending General Eabi to the 
north of Santiago with nine hundred men, and 
six hundred, under Castillo, to the east of the 
city, while he, Garcia, established his headquar- 
ters at Aceraderos, fourteen miles west of Santi- 
ago, to await the arrival of the American troops. 
As further and useful ways of passing the wait- 
ing time, there was more cable cutting and 



Y6 The Fall of Santiago. 

another striking attention was given to the forts 
guarding the entrance to Santiago harbor. 
There were several small exchanges with the 
forts, but the only two of consequence, in addi- 
tion to that which they received at the hands of 
Schlej' soon after his arrival, were the bombard- 
ments of the forts by the entire blockading fleet, 
which took place on the 6th and IGth of June. 

The endeavors to reduce the harbor fortifica- 
tions on these two dates wore valuable as 
lessons and practice, but so far as the reduction 
of the forts went they were practically without 
result. We learned again at Santiago what the 
allied forces had learned at Sebastopol and Cron- 
stadt, and what we had learned at Charleston. 
When the shells fell unpleasantly near the gun- 
ners they left their guns, and when the bombard- 
ment was over the damages were repaired and the 
forts and batteries were in as good fighting trim 
as before. During these two bombardments our 
ships expended ammunition to the value of three 
hundred thousand dollars, killed and wounded 
less than three hundred Spaniards, and at the 
conclusion of the engagements Morro was practi- 
cally unscathed and the earthworks practically as 
good as ever. 

Nor did these bombardments result in drawing 
a verj- heavy Spanish fire, the return from all 



The Fall of Santiago. 77 

the fortifications being extremely small and de- 
liberate. Not more than ton per cent, of the 
guns in place was used, and if our attacks were 
practically without result the Spanish reply was 
absolutely unproductive of harm. 

Neither can the bombardment by the dynamite 
cruiser or gunboat Vesuvius bo said to have 
effected the "tremendous revolution in naval 
warfare" which some people expected of her. 
The first use of the Vesuvius was on Mondaj', 
June 13. Commander Pillsbury had been beg- 
ging Sampson ever since his arrival off Santiago 
for permission to try his three pneumatic tubes, 
and on Monday night he gained the admiral's 
consent. It was dark as a pit's mouth all about 
the harbor entrance, and under cover of this 
blackness the Vesuvius crept up to within three- 
quarters of a mile and fired her first gun. 

The term is used only as a colloquialism, for as 
one of description it is entirely inaccurate. 
When the Vesuvius discharged her shell there 
was no smoke, no flash and, in place of an explo- 
sion, a peculiar husky, wheezing sound, as 
though — so said the sailors in homely but ex- 
pressive phrase — some gigantic cow had been 
choked with an enormous turnip and were trying 
to cough it up. But, while the emission and 
flight of the projectile — a contact exploding 



78 The Fall of Santiago. 

shell containing two hundred pounds of gun 
cotton — were noiseless, the landing of the mis- 
sile was thunderous. Three shells at this time 
were fired, all three exploded on impact and 
each explosion was as though there had been 
some convulsion of nature — not so much a deaf- 
ening sound as an all-pervading and appalling 
concussion. 

Here again, while it was proved that the Vesu- 
vius could successfully discharge her gun-cotton 
shells, that these shells would traverse a great 
distance, that impact meant detonation, and that 
detonation meant a convulsion of the country- 
Bide — this practically limited the accomplish- 
ment of her bombardment. It was found after- 
ward — and following other bombardments — that 
where the shells struck they changed the topog- 
raphy of the coast, and that the demoralizing 
effect of a silently emitted shell that shook the 
hills and jilowcd up the valleys when it struck 
homte was very great, but it was also found that 
the fact of the vessel's being her own gun-car- 
riage and the fixed elevation of the tubes meant 
that it was almost impossible to aim accurately 
at a fortified eminence. The Vesuvius where her 
tubes could be brought to bear on an extended 
area, well in range, and chiefly within the 
limited parabola of her shells' flight, would 



The Fall of Santiago. 79 

doubtless be a tremendous engine of destructive- 
ness, but the fact remains that she did not tear 
up a single fort off Santiago nor send a single 
gun flying into space. 

Meanwhile the armada of invasion was being 
rushed into sailing form, and at last the final 
rendezvous of the fleet was made just inside the 
bar at the mouth of Tampa Baj' at 3 :50 p.m. June 
14, and two hours later it got under way. The 
mobilization of the transport fleet had been ac- 
complished with much shuttle work between the 
various points of rendezvous, but when it had 
formed into fair sailing order and was steaming 
across the waters of the gulf it formed a naval 
pageant whose like had not been seen since the 
days of Philip of Spain and ]prake. 

Stretching over twenty miles of sea and mov- 
ing slowly ahead at a seven-knot rate the 
great fleet advanced in throe parallel columns. 
In number they were forty; in formation the 
transports kept in triple column, preceded and 
flanked by the armed convoys. At the head of 
the central column of transports steamed the 
Detroit with pennant flj'ing; while to the right of 
the troop ships were aligned the Indiana, Anna- 
polis, Castine and Panther. In patrol duty the 
Bancroft flitted along to the left; the Hornet and 
Scorpion steamed in among the troop ships like 



80 The Fall of Santiago. 

marshals at a parade to keep the procession well 
in order, while the Helena brought up the rear. 
As in a proccssiou, too, sometimes the divisions 
would become ill spaced. Then the whole parade 
would halt and the little steaming, puffing 
marshals would scurry here and there, driving 
the laggard into place or keeping back too restive 
a member, while the transport steamers marked 
time by rolling and pitching in the short run- 
ning seas. All around, like the uneasy boys on 
the street flitted the press dispatch boats and 
private craft attracted by the novelty, danger and 
excitement of the event. 

Guarded, though it was, by warships and 
moving though it might be into the enemy's 
waters, there was nothing about the whole fleet 
that would indicate impending fight. It was, 
rather, the ostentatious, open order of a floating 
armament devised as a spectacle. Far as the 
eye could reach the ships spread out covering 
the sea, as open to the enemy's view as though 
it had been a moving continent. The guns of 
the great pyramidical Indiana boomed out a 
salute to the commanding general, the Bancroft 
howled orders through her siren, and so vast 
was the formation that had an enemy attacked 
the rear the Indiana could not have seen it even 
from her fighting tops. 



The Fall of Santiago. 81 

There was a bright sunshine, sky and sea 
were both of the vivitlest blue, and oyer sky 
and sea both there rushed white flecks — these of 
clouds, those of foam. The decks of the ships 
were crowded with men; right at the head of the 
middle column flew a dark-blue flag with its 
Maltese cross at the foremast head of the Sagur- 
anca, the headquarters of General Shafter; 
orders were shouted hero and there through the 
megaphone; the hospital ship steamed about 
like a doctor on his visits inquiring the health of 
his patients in reply to the sick signal, and so 
with running seas, bright skies by day and 
lighted ships hy night the great armada moved 
majestically along. 

On Friday, June 17, those on the transport 
fleet caught the first sight of the Cuban coast, a 
white lighthouse on the outlying key of Paredon 
Grande. Then on Saturday the mainland came 
into view — hazy hills along Cape Lucretia; 
Sunday morning the fleet turned into the Wind- 
ward Passage; CapeMaysi was rounded at night, 
and early on the morning of Monday, June 21, 
the seventh day of the fleet's journey from Port 
Tampa, the great broken Sierras that lie around 
Santiago came into view. 

As an evidence of the impatience with which 
the arrival of the transport fleet had been awaited, 



82 The Fall of Santiago 



&^ 



the two tugs. Resolute and Wompatuck, were 
seen by the lookout men on board the Indiana 
steaming about Cape Maysi like pilots on the 
lookout for a patron, and another evidence was 
observed when these same lookout men saw that 
as soon as tho watching tugs caught a glimpse of 
Shafter's armada they scurried away with the 
news toward Santiago. Next the Detroit caught 
the infection of impatience, and when the fleet 
was abreast of Guantanamo she put on full steam 
and raced with the tugs for first place in carry- 
ing the news. 

As the great sea procession moved slowly into 
view of the blockading fleet the waiting sailors 
burst into a mightj'- cheer, and as the line of 
massive gray hulks was seen by the fighting men 
on board the transports they sent back the cheer. 
And so it went on in a majestic and inspiring 
antiphonal of hurrahs that must have crossed 
the hills and reached Santiago itself. The flag- 
ship fired a salute and sent the Admiral's launch 
to welcome Shafter, while with signals flying the 
great transport fleet wheeled into position with 
every ship's bows facing Santiago. 

For the sailors it meant that something was to 
be done beside swinging up and down in the oily 
waters of the Caribbean Sea or firing shells at 
ever demolished and ever repaired earthworks; 




Copyright hv Mail ari.l Express. 



The first landing place of the An: 




troops in Cuba — -View of Daiquir. 



Tlic Fall of Santiago. 83 

^vllilo to the soldiers it meant something more 
than tho dreary routine of camp life, the vexa- 
tion of contradictory orders and tho cramped life 
of tho transports. For both, it meant action 
and war at last. 

Early next morning, that is, on Tuesday, June 
21, Shafter and Sampson went ashore at the little 
landing-place of Aceraderos to meet Garcia and 
discuss the best location for landing the troops. 
Garcia was in favor of landing there and advanc- 
ing on Santiago from the west, and Sampson was 
inclined to agree with him, but Shafter, who had 
closely inspected tho coast from a launch tho day 
before, and who had studied the best available 
maps, decided in favor of Daiquiri, fifteen miles 
to the east of tho Santiago harbor. The Gen- 
eral's two chief reasons for this selection were 
that from Daiquiri could be gained the command 
of a great plateau directly overlooking Santiago 
and that the covo contained a railroad wharf. 
Deference was naturally paid to the wish of tho 
general iu command, and the conference broke 
up after settling the plans of co-operation on the 
part of the fleet and insurgents. 

Daiquiri deserves a paragraph to itself. At it 
the coast range of Santiago Province, known as 
the Sierra Cobre, ends in a great peak or mas- 
sive pile of rocks called La Gran Piedra, which 



84 The Fall of Santiago 



to" 



seems to rise abruptly from the sea. It does 
not, however, drop sheer iuto the sea, but puts 
out a number of rugged spurs which have been 
cleft in some cataclysm iuto a series of sharply 
cut rocky formations separated by well-defined 
chasms or gullies. To some poetic-souled Span- 
iard, these massive, steep-sided rock masses con- 
veyed the impression of altars, and so the locality 
is set down on some maps as Las Altares. Between 
the beach and the mountain peak stretches a 
terrace some fifty feet above the water, and on 
this terrace had been built a little settlement of 
some twenty frame houses, owned by the Span- 
ish American Iron Company, largely controlled 
by the Carnegie Corporation at Pittsburg. The 
company had been formed to exploit the iron 
mines which lie ten miles away in the mountains 
overlooking Santiago harbor. Between the mines 
and the landing-place the company had also built 
a railroad which at Daiquiri ended in a trestle 
bridge and loading chutes, a wharf, a machine 
shop, and roundhouse. The surf thunders cease- 
lessly in on all the coast except in one little cove 
to the west of the railroad wharf, and through this 
break and at this wharf and along the sparse 
stretches of coral beach it was that the landing 
took place on the morning of "Wednesday, June 
22. 



The Fall of Santiago. 85 

Before the laudiug, however, the blockading 
fleet had its i)art to play. That part was a dual 
one. First to insure as nearly as possible a safe 
landing for the troops, and secondly to confuse 
the Spaniards as to the selected place of landing. 
To carry out the second part of this programme 
the Cubans counterfeited a scene of great prep- 
aration at Aceraderos and decoy transports 
sailed into Cabanas Bay, a small inlet about two 
miles distant from the entrance. For the first 
part of the itrogramme Sampson treated the men 
on the transports to a sight which they will never 
forget. It was that of twenty miles of bombard- 
ment. East and west of Santiago harbor the 
great fleet of warships stretched along the shore, 
hurling shells at Aguadorcs, Cabanas, Siboncy, 
Juragua, Daiquiri, and wherever a roundhouse 
was noticed, an earthwork seen, or a blockhouse 
flag distinguished. 

The feature of this twenty miles of bombard- 
ment was the long distance duel between the 
Texas and the Socapa battery. It was remark- 
able for two things. First, as an engagement 
between a single battleship and a shore battery 
in which the ship shelled the fort to a standstill, 
and secondly, as furnishing the unusual example 
of a Spanish cannoneer hitting his mark and kill- 
ing his man. The engagement grew out of the 



86 The Fall of Santiago. 

feiut wliich had been planned for Cabanas 
Bay. 

Ten transports had been ordered to make a 
pretense of landing troops there, and the Texas, 
Scorpion and Vixen had been ordered to shell 
the blockhouse and surrounding hills as if 
covering the landing. During the night of 
June 21-22, the Texas steamed into the shadow 
of the Cabanas mountains, and daj-light found 
her there waiting for the transports. At seven 
o'clock four of these appeared and the Texas, to 
get the shore range, fired a half-dozen riile shots. 
They were immediately answered by a gun from 
high-perched Socapa — a shell in splendid line 
whistling over the mastheads as the puff of white 
smoke rose above the fort. The range was found 
to be five thousand yards and the accuracy of 
the Spanish gunner at that long distance was 
such a thorough surprise that Captain Philip 
decided to give the feint a larger proportion of 
actuality than had been intended. 

The port twelve-inch turret gun was trained 
on Socapa, and as its report shook the ship a 
cloud of red dust was seen to rise over the Span- 
ish guns. Forging slowly but steadily nearer, 
the Texas followed this first shot with a contin- 
ued and well-aimed fire from the big guns of her 
port battery. Hit after hit was counted, but 



The Fall of Santiago. 87 

unfortunately the Texas had no explosive shells 
for her turret guus and could only use the solid, 
armor-piercing shot. It was the crushing force 
of the impact, therefore, and not the rending of 
an explosion on which the Texas gunners had to 
rely for the damage done and which, of course, 
materially limited the area of possible injury. 
Each shot was reported to Captain Philip, and 
aiming instructions given from the bridge. The 
Spanish reply was fierce and the most accurate 
that had been experienced. Shells from the 
Socapa guns moaned over the ship's deck, 
splashed the water about her, rattled exploding 
fragments all over her sides and at last struck 
her fairly. The Indiana, Oregon, Massachusetts, 
Iowa, and Brooklyn were all lying a few miles 
away from the encounter, but none thought it 
worth while taking a hand in the duel, holding 
that the Texas was able to take care of herself. 
And BO it proved, the battery being fought to a 
standstill by the Texas and her solid shot in an 
hour and a half. 

The Spaniard's shell was not only noteworthy 
as killing the first man on an American vessel 
during the Santiago campaign, but as furnish- 
ing a valuable example of the apalling force and 
destructive qualities of a modern projectile. 
The shell that struck the Texas was six inches 



88 The Fall of Santiago. 

in diameter, was of steel and weighed about 
seventy-five pounds. It struck the ship's side 
on the port bow about five feet below the main 
deck and burst in the forward compartment where 
there were six 6-pounder guns, three on either 
side. The crews of all these guns were at quar- 
ters, although they had not been in action, and 
the miracle is that instead of only one man killed 
and eight wounded, the entire fifteen were not 
blown into fragments. 

At the point of impact the ship's side consisted 
of steel plates one and a quarter inches thick, 
the shell piercing it like so much paper; or 
rather, like so much parchment, the tough metal 
being folded back in long strips. Sotrifiing had 
been the resistance of the steel that the shell 
slipped through it without exploding, and would 
in all probability have passed out on the other 
side unexploded had it not struck a metal stan- 
chion amidships. The stanchion was shivered 
for about two feet of its length, the shell burst, 
and, while many fragments flew from the explo- 
sion as a common center, the larger mass of the 
broken shell flew forward against the starboard 
side and bulged out the stout steel plates until 
they stood as a ridge on the ship's side three 
inches high. 

AYhere this bulge occurred and on the inside 



Cnpy right by Mail an J Expres 



Debarkation of Shatter's 




of Invasion at Daiquiri. 



The Fall of Santiago. 89 

of the ship one of tlic big doubleheaded angle 
irons of the ship's frame was situated. It was 
of steel, nearly twice as thick and heavy as a rail- 
road rail, yet two feet of it were scooped out 
and carried away as though chipped off by a 
cold chisel. The base of the shell took a down- 
ward direction after cutting through the stan- 
chion, plowed a great furrow through the steel 
deck, hit and broke a steel rib of the ship, broke 
itself and buried its pieces down through four 
feet of hemp hawser wound around a cable reel 
which stood close to the starboard side and shiv- 
ered the two-foot prism of solid oak on which 
the hawser was wound. By the explosion of the 
shell and the fractures made by coming into con- 
tact with the stanchion and ribs the shell was 
resolved into a flying hail of steel splinters 
which swept along the starboard side for nearly 
thirty feet, cutting off bolt heads, breaking gun- 
fittings and actually planing off the paint from 
the ship's side as cleanly as though it had been 
laboriously done by hand. The fragmentary 
result of the explosion was very remarkable. 
The pieces of steel which were rained every- 
where through the compartment weighed about 
an ounce each, the only fragment of any size 
being rather less than half of the base of the 
shell and it was from that fragment that the size 
of the projectile was learned. 



90 The Fall of Santiago. 

The man who was killed was directly in the 
path of the shell at the moment of its explosion, 
and he was literally blown to pieces, although, 
strangely enough, the comrade to whom he was 
talking, and who stood at less than an arm's 
length away, escaped unhurt, except for being 
knocked down by the force of the explosion. 
Every other man within radius of the flying frag- 
ments was wounded; and not only wounded, but 
wounded, so to speak, profusely. One gunner 
was hit with no fewer than fifteen pieces of steel, 
each about the size of a hazelnut, while other 
men thirty feet away from the line of shot were 
found to have a dozen pieces or more of shell in 
their bodies. 

Lastly, as an example of the destructive force 
of the exploding shell, it may be stated that, when 
it burst, the gunpowder smoke was forced by the 
concussion down the ammunition hoists, and into 
the forward compartments of the ship in such 
volumes that for a few minutes the crew below 
were almost suffocated. 

This, it is repeated, was the first time that our 
men had had the opportunity to observe the 
havoc caused by a modern steel shell filled with 
high explosives, and as Captain Philip looked at 
the wrecked compartment and the dead and 
wounded he was heard to say : 



The Fall of Santiago. 91 

"Well, if a six-inch shell did all that, what 
would a thirteen-incher do?" 

Ever since the arrival of the blockading fleet 
outside Santiago, General Linares, in command 
of the Spanish military forces of Santiago Prov- 
ince, had prepared for what he knew must come. 
Every possible landing-place had been fortified, 
and naturally in this series of defenses Daiquiri 
had not escaped attention. Indeed, Daiquiri 
had been especially looked after, up to a certain 
point. When our troops landed there they found 
what was I'ealb' a magnificent system of defense, 
earthworks, trenches, pits, breastworks, every- 
thing indeed, except the one essential — that of 
artillery. When the bombardment began there 
were five hundred Sjianiards in charge of these in- 
trenchments, but when the Helena, Hornet and 
Bancroft tore great gashes in the scrub and brush 
of the hillsides Avith their shells ; dropped a few 
6-inch explosives among the earthworks; filled 
up tbe rifle pits with fountains of gravel and 
dust and even demolished the blockhouse on top 
of the La Gran Piedra, the garrison concluded 
that any attempt to keep out the American army 
of invasion would be somewhat futile. 

Steaming down in full view of this theatric act ' 
of war the transports formed outside Daiquiri, 
while the signal went upon the Saguaranca, 



92 The Fall of Santiago. 

"Everybody get ashore. " Instantly the flotilla 
of whaleboats, gigs, barges, and launches which 
had hung around the transports got into motion. 
The troopers rushed down the gangway, clam- 
bered over the side ladders, pushed their way 
into the boats, a laughing, cheering, jostling 
crowd, and loaded the boat to the gunwales in 
their eagerness to get ashore. As the first boat, 
in tow of the steam launches, started from the 
fleet a few Spaniards who had taken refuge be- 
hind the blockhouse, ran out and began firing 
at the loaded boats. As they did so a thousand 
Cubans who had been brought down during the 
night from Aceraderos under charge of General 
Castillo, burst from the woods as if by magic 
and began firing on the Spaniards. These broke 
and ran for cover into the western woods, while 
the New Orleans and Detroit steamed along shore 
and hastened their departure with a few shells. 

All day long the lauding went on. Quietly 
cruising here and there like great sentries on 
patrol were the vessels of war; in uneven ranks 
the transports rolled in the short running waves; 
and between these and tlie shore there was a con- 
stant procession of laden-going and empty-re- 
turning boats and puffing launches. All around 
on the shore side of the view stretched the open 
crescent of liills, wooded from verge to summit. 



The Fall of Santiago. 93 

Ou Iho closer bills could bo seen tbe long ebaggy 
leaves of the palms, tbe towering cocoanut trees 
lifting their froudcd beads above the lower 
woods; as a background, a purple peak four 
thousand feet high; as a foreground, beetling 
cliffs and wooded glades; and as sounds, tbe 
cheery cry of American voices, the unending call 
of tbe chafing sea and the wild vivas of Castillo's 
men as they trooped down to tbe landing-place 
to welcome the first of the armies of liberation 
after having disposed of tho Spaniards in tbe 
woods. 

There bad been delay, disappointment and 
drag in tbe collection and shipping of Shafter's 
army, there was none in its debarkation. When 
night came about twenty small boats bad been 
smashed at tbe landing-wharf by tbe surf, two 
colored troopers of the Tenth Cavalry bad been 
drowned from an overturned boat, a few horses 
and mules had been drowned while trying to 
swim ashore, but otherwise ten thousand troops 
bad landed on an enemy's country without mis- 
hap and with a celerity and order that will 
always stand as a precedent in the science of 
campaigning. 

Next day, in order to further expedite the 
landing, those transports having artillery and 
tbe balance of supplies were sent to Siboney 



94 The Fall of Santiago. 

Cove, five miles westward. Wednesday night 
saw the camp fires sparkling all over the valley 
and beach around Daiquiri ; and Thursday night 
found the men who had lit these camp fires a 
long line of marching men with its advance mak- 
ing for Santiago, and other camp fires sparkling 
all over the valley and beach around picturesque, 
but ill-starred Sibouey. 



The Fall of Santia^ro. 95 



CHAPTER V. 

HOW THE ROUGH lUDEKS FOUGHT AT LA GUASIMA. 

Broadly speaking, Sbaftcr's plan of campaign 
was to push his men forward as rapidly as possi- 
ble after landing, to drive the enemy back to- 
ward Santiago, and not to stop in his march on 
to Santiago until ho occupied the plateau and 
heights which immediately looked down on and 
commanded the city. He knew from the Cuban 
scouts that between that point of vantage and 
Daiciuiri the Spanish lay in strength; and he 
knew from what he had seen from shipboard and 
the inspection of maps that between Santiago 
and Dai<iuiri lay fifteen miles of the roughest 
country and dense tropical jungle. Roads, how- 
ever, that were down on the map in large invit- 
ing lines turned out, on actual inspection, to be 
but bridle paths which became mud streams after 
each downpour, while the transportation of artil- 
lery to the front would moan a gigantic task for 
the engineers whose complete fulfillment would 
take a far longer time than he in his impatience 



96 The Fall of Santiago. 

was willing to consider. But some semblance of 
work on the roads was an actual necessity, and 
in order to cover this preparatory work and to 
clear the territory immediately surrounding the 
landing, General Shafter deemed it essential to 
occupy Siboney, a village occupying a command- 
ing position eleven miles up the coast from 
Daiquiri and eight across country from Santiago. 

Not waiting, therefore, for the cavalry horses, 
siege artillery and balance of the troops, Shafter, 
in pursuance of his impetuous plans, sent forward 
General Joseph Wheeler with nine hundred and 
sixty-four men from his cavalry division, made 
up of eight troops of Colonel Wood's regiment 
(the Rough Eiders), numbering five hundred; 
four troops of the First Regular Cavalry, num- 
bering two hundred and forty -four men; and 
four troops of the Tenth Cavalry (colored), num- 
bering two hundred and twenty, all dismounted. 
The Rough Riders had iJeaded for advance duty 
and Shafter obliged them. 

These Rough Riders furnished the picturesque 
element of the army. At the very outbreak of 
hostilities, and indeed before the actual declara- 
tion of war, there were vague rumors in the 
newspapers of the contemplated formation of a 
cavalry regiment for the Cuban campaign that 
should be something conjointly approaching a 



Tlie Fall of Santiago. 97 

Buffalo Bill sLow, a round-up of "Western coAvboys 
and a congregation of cross-country huntsmen. 
Tbo credit for tLo initiative of the idea lies in 
aiuiablo dispute between General Miles and Theo- 
dore Roosevelt, but from the very first the name 
of Roosevelt was more intimately associated in the 
public mind with the idea than that of any one 
else. 

When war broke out ho was Assistant Secre- 
tary of the Navy, but immediately following 
on McKinlcy's proclamation he resigned and was 
by the president named as Lieutenant-Colonel of 
the First United States Volunteer Cavalry, of 
which Captain Leonard Wood, assistant surgeon 
in the regular army, was appointed Colonel. The 
work of organization was immediately begun by 
Colonel "Wood and aides, who chose the Western 
States as the best recruiting ground from which 
to select their men. Dr. "Wood, as he was general- 
ly known, was admirably adapted for this recruit- 
ing work, having had a long experience in West- 
ern army life. Truth to tell, there was little 
need of recruiting, for with the first intimation 
that the regiment was to be an accomplished 
fact, the War Department was swamped with 
appeals for information as to points at which 
enlistments might be made. 

Every man in the country who could ride a 



98 The Fall of Santiago. 

horse, or who had an inclination to do so, ap- 
peared to imagine that he was the man of all men 
who should be a trooper. Colonel Wood was, 
however, determined that his regiment should 
only contain the very best of horsemen and 
fighting material. The line was drawn rigor- 
ously at toughs and incapables. Every man was 
a picked man and when the regiment was finally 
declared to be completed at San Antonio, Texas, 
it proved to be an aggregation of extremes, 
record and experience that was unique in mili- 
tary history. The members ranged from cotil- 
lion leader to bronco buster, from society roy- 
sterer to policeman, from dead-shot cowboy to 
champion golfer, from a record-making college 
runner to a steer brander of Skull Valley, from a 
champion football player of the East to a bear 
hunter of the West. Dancers, polo players, 
good fellows, old soldiers, bad men, firemen — ■ 
the wildest congregation of dudes and dare- 
devils surely that was ever brought together. A 
few of the names and a word of those who bore 
them should find a place here. 

"Dead Shot Jim" Simpson, from Albuquerque, 
N. M., could put a rifle ball through a jack 
rabbit's eyes while riding a wild horse a thou- 
sand yards off. Woodbury Kane, a cousin of 
John Jacob Astor, was equally at home as a polo 



The Fall of Santiago. 99 

player and a yachtsman. "Lariat Ned" Per- 
kins, from Trinidad, Col., had the reputation of 
being able to make his twisted rope as deadly 
as a rifle. AVillio Tiffany, of New York, was 
a cousin of the Belmonts, the nephew of Com- 
modore Perry and an authority on fine raiment. 
"Eocky Mountain Bill" Jenkins was a mighty 
hunter of the grizzly and was, literally, always 
loaded for bear. Hamilton Fish, Jr., of New 
York, was the descendant of a long line of 
famous men and had established a reputation in 
which energy and animal spirits were only 
equaled bj' good fellowship and lovable disposi- 
tion. "Bronco George" Brown, of Arizona, 
had killed his five men, but they all went down for 
cattle stealing, for cheating at cards, or for im- 
pudence to women. Eeggie Eeynolds, son of 
Mrs. Lorillard B. Eeynolds, was quarterback on 
a Yale team and a handshaking acquaintance of 
the Prince of Wales. "Fighting Bob" "Wilson, 
of Wyoming, was the terror of the rustlers on his 
range. I. Townsend Burden, Jr., was the son of 
a great millionaire of New York City, and proud 
of his record on the football field. 

And so, with much dust and jingle of spurs, 
the plainsmen and mountaineers of the West 
came trooping into San Antonio; with valets, 
bathtubs, and dress-suit cases, the dudes and 



100 The Fall of Santiago. 

brokers of the East rolled into town in parlor 
cars ; with the outfits of the fop, the handbag of 
the hardy experienced man, and with no kits at 
all, save the things on his back and the beast 
he bestrode, the Eough Eiders gathered together. 

But when once together every division of class 
and belonging was swept away. There was com- 
radeship from the start, for each man was a 
United States trooper, sworn to serve his coun- 
try and to fight for it at thirteen dollars a mouth 
with rations and uniform. The uniform, by the 
bye, was as picturesque as the men. Made of 
gray grass cloth, cool and light of texture, with 
pipings and facings of blue, with a sombrero 
turned up and fastened at the side with a rosette, 
armed with a Krag-Jorgeusen carbine, two revol- 
vers and a machete, the Eough Eiders presented 
a decidedly dashing and warlike appearance. 
In their camp life they settled down to hard 
work with an energy, obedience and good will 
that were glorious. Much of this hard work was 
given to the breaking and drilling of the horses, 
yet by one of the ironical strokes of fate the first 
time the Eough Eiders went into battle they 
went afoot. 

Such were the Eough Eiders, who with the 
First Eegulars, a regiment noted in every army 
post for its steady valor, and the Tenth troopers, 



The Fall of Santiago. 101 

with their "Westorn reputation as always wanting 
to fight and always fighting as devils when that 
want was gratified, at daybreak of June 23, 
marched out of Dai(iuiri on the road to Sibonej", 
accompanied by a body of Cuban scouts. The 
first halt was made at the little village of Dema- 
jayabo, and for these and all other names to bo 
mentioned reference had better be had to the 
accompanying map. 

That march was a trial to the souls and condi- 
tion of the men. They had heard of the Cuban 
forests and the Cuban heat, but the most vivid 
imagination had pictured nothing approaching 
the reality. The road was a mule path and not 
always an ordinarily good mule path at that. 
AVhere it did not pass through swamps of malo- 
dorous mud it was a winding lane of irony-red 
earth, which rose in clouds of dust as the men 
tramped on, filled their eyes and noses, was plas- 
tered on their streaming faces, and found its waj- 
even between the flaps of the buttoned gaiters. 
On each side of the path rose the thick steamy 
jungle, so profuse in its vegetation that its en- 
tangling vines and piercing thorns stretched 
across it almost at every step. Sometimes there 
were breaks in the chaparral, but on these open 
spaces the sun beat down with uninterrupted 
fervor, so that it was not a relief but rather a 



102 The Fall of Santiago. 

choice of evils betAveen the blazing experience of 
the bare spots and the boiling experience of the 
woods. As was the case at the fight over the 
hills at Guantanamo, the men started in heavy 
accoutrements, in full marching order, but as 
the day grew and the heat with it, the men 
threw away not only their blanket rolls and pro- 
vision haversacks but even their clothing, until 
the i)ath side looked as though it had been 
traversed rather by an army in retreat than by 
one in advance. 

Juragua was reached at night without the 
faintest opposition from the Spaniards, the Cuban 
scouts bringing in information that the enemy 
which had been in some force at Sibouey bad 
fallen back on the Sevilla road and had halted 
and intrenched themselves at a small settlement 
named La Guasima, some three or four miles be- 
yond Siboney. Many of the men had fallen 
from exhaustion, and the detachment of Rough 
Eiders, which had been in charge of the dyna- 
mite gun, with which it was expected to do great 
things, had insisted on bringing this weapon 
with them, so that it was long after dusk when 
the last stragglers were brought in by the rear- 
guard. General Castillo, who was in command 
of the Cuban scouts, made out a rough map of 
La Guasima for General Wheeler and it was de- 




Gen. '•joe" Wheeler. 



The Fall of Santiago. 103 

cided to continue the march beyond Siboney at 
daybreak of the 24:th and attack the Spanish 
position. 

There were two roads leading to La Guasima, 
and it was decided to divide the American forces 
so as to attack the Spaniards from two quarters. 
Colonel Wood's regiment was sent to approach 
the enemy on the left hand or mountain road, 
while Wheeler and Young, with the First and 
Tenth, and three Hotchkiss mountain guns, were 
to attack the enemy on the main or valley road. 
Young's command had somewhat the shorter 
road and they started by throwing out a strong 
scouting line in order to give Wood's men a 
chance to work round to the left. The troopers, 
as they lay at Juragua, had heard the Spaniards 
felling the trees before daybreak and judged that 
they were throwing up barricades, but on ac- 
count of the echoing hills could not exactly 
locate the spot from which the sounds came. 
With the general locality of the Spaniards and 
the character of their position and their strength 
General Wheeler was, however, measurably well 
informed, as his plan of battle indicates. 

In the first confused reports of what follows 
the belief was entertained that the Kough Eiders 
had fallen into an ambuscade, but except inso- 
much as nearly all the Spanish^fighting was done 



101 The Fall of Santiam 



o^ 



from tbe ambush of protecting timber, dense 
screens of foliage and well-hidden rifle pits, the 
fight at La Guasima scarcely possessed any 
greater share of an attack from ambush than did 
the battles of San Juan and El Caney, No 
clearer refutation of the ambush story is needed 
than the fact that on the night before the battle 
General Young sent for Colonel Wood and said 
to him: 

"Colonel, Castillo's scouts tell me that the 
Spaniards have taken a very strong position near 
the junction of the trail over the mountain to 
Sevilla and the valley road. It is evidently their 
belief that they can stop or drive us back if we 
try to advance, but I think the brigade can fight 
and win the first battle of the war to-morrow 
morning." 

Althought last to start, the First and Tenth 
Cavalry men were the first to open the action. 
The road over which they went cheerily along 
•was moderately good, and the men being used 
to hot weather marching made good progress. 
When they rose from the valley on to one of the 
foothills which rose in chaotic prodigality all 
about they discovered the enemy, hurried a 
Hotchkiss gun to the crest and began blazing 
away. 

Eight across a narrow valley which lay in front 



The Fall of Santiago. 105 

of tliem rose another hill, and on it they plainly 
distinguished the Spanish position. Tho main 
body of the Spaniards was posted around two 
blockhouses near tho summit, flanked by irreg- 
ular intrenchments of stone and trees. These 
intrenchments were in the shape of a broad V or 
horseshoe, the point of which was toward the 
trail and road where they came together at the 
foot of the hill. In this position they were en- 
abled to offer a triple fire against any advancing 
force. Between tho intrenchments and tho trails 
was a dense thicket, and as it proved afterward, 
this thicket was alive with sharpshooters and 
guerrillas. The main body of the regulars was 
streaming up the valley road after the advance 
men with their Hotchkiss, but the Rough Riders 
could not bo seen owing to the broken nature of 
the country and its densely wooded character. 
As a matter of fact, they were, at that time, 
pushing along the trail which led over the crest 
of a hill much similar in elevation and character 
to that occupied by the regulars. If this de- 
scription is at all clear it will bo seen, therefore, 
that in the confusion of hills there were three 
that were distinct points of interest. To the 
right that occupied by the Regulars, to the left 
that over which the Rough Riders were climbing 
and, between these two flanking elevations, the 



106 The Fall of Santiago, 

central hill on "which the Spaniards were 
posted. 

The distance between the two hills occupied 
by our men was about half a mile. The Hotch- 
kiss pieces began the fight at seven-thirty, 
and in reply to the first rattling sweep of the 
machine guns the whole front of the hill facing 
them burst into volleys from the Spanish Mau- 
sers. The troopers were instantly ordered to lie 
down in the road along which they were strung, 
General Young's command being "Don't shoot 
until you see something to shoot at," which he 
yelled to his men as stripped to the waist they 
crawled and squirmed into some position from 
which they could get a chance to see their 
enemies. Almost immediately thereafter came 
the crack of the Krag-Jorgensens from Colonel 
"Wood's men and the engagement was on. 

Meanwhile, the Kough Eiders had pushed their 
way over the cactus-lined mountain trail. They 
had marched two miles when they came across 
the body of a dead Cuban and this evidence of 
the Spanish whereabouts was sufiicient to admon- 
ish the men that an especially sharp lookout was 
necessary. The dead scout was found by the 
skirmishers of Troop L, which was under com- 
mand of Captain Allyn K. Capron. He imme- 
diately deployed his men and sent back word to 



The Pall of Santiago. 107 

Colonel Wood of his discovery. The regiment 
was hurried up, but before it could be well de- 
ployed the whole line of thickets to their front 
and right broke out with the sharp, sibillant sing 
of the Spanish rifles. As at Guantanamo the 
Spaniards fired in such rapid volleys hy holding 
the rifle at the hip and pumping the shots out 
with the quick fanning of the right hand on the 
lever bar that the discharges actuallj' sounded 
as though they were from machine guns. 

Word was passed along the American line to 
fire right and left and in front, and for an hour 
and a half this fight of gunncrj^ continued. Ow- 
ing to the facts that the Spanish were so com- 
pletely under cover and that they used smokeless 
powder it was almost impossible to direct any 
answering fire that might be effective, but by 
careful watching a Spanish head was seen here 
or there or some sharpshooter was seen slipping 
from cover to cover, and wherever either head or 
sharpshooter was seen an American bullet was 
sure to find its mark. 

In the first blaze of the Mausers' Hamilton 
Fish was killed. He was in the advance as the 
head of the skirmishers turned the crest of the 
hill and though the order to take cover was im- 
mediate, the commanding position of the Spanish 
riflemen was such that thej' could send a drop- 



108 The Fall of Santiago. 

ping fire into the men as they Ifiy down. Along- 
side Fish lay Ed Culver, a Cherokee Indian, and 
the same long Mauser bullet that struck the 
brave roj'stering aristocrat struck the half-breed, 
for it passed through Fish's body and lodged in 
that of Culver. "When Fish was struck he said 
to Culver: "I am wounded," to which Culver 
made reply: "And I am killed." But it was 
not so, for it was Fish who died when they took 
him back and set him under a tree with his face 
to the enemy, while the half-breed Indian lived 
and, though shot through the lung, continued 
to empty his rifle at the Spaniards until his am- 
munition pouch was exhausted and the gun fell 
from his hands. 

Soon after this Captain Capron was shot as he 
walked along the line cheering his men. He had 
taken a rifle from a wounded man and was firing 
when tbe bullet struck him. As the troopers 
lifted him to carry him to the rear he shook his 
head and said: "No, place me here. I want to 
see this thing out." 

And so he did, for they propped up his head 
so that the firing line was visible, and when the 
captain died the troopers were chasing down the 
valley and up the hill and the day was prac- 
tically won. 

When it was seen that only a desperate charge 



The Fall of Santiafro. 109 



o" 



"would ■svin the clay, orders were sent alone; the 
line fur an advance and tLen began tlio first of 
those cyclonic rushes which later won Santiago, 
and which so amazed the Si)aniards. By all the 
rules of warfare to which they were accustonaed, 
the Spanish soldiers held an impregnable posi- 
tion, -while the fire to which the Americans were 
exposed was one that could only force a retreat. 
But the Americans had quite another idea and 
when the word came to advance they leaped from 
cover with yell that rang from end to end of the 
line, and went sweeping down the sides of their 
hills, across the valleys beneath, and up the 
central mountain. 

As at Guantanamo the long line of men would 
rush forward, loading as they rushed, then halt 
with a rock-like poise, aim and fire, and then 
rush on again. On the right could be heard the 
screaming negroes of the Tenth, in the center 
the First Cavalry moved forward like a living 
wall, while to the left the Eougb Eiders, yelling 
like Indians, pressed forward, Eoosevelt in the 
lead with a Xrag-Jorgensen in his hands and 
yelling as loud as the wildest man from the West. 

The Spanish fire was steady enough for a time, 
but nothing could stand the charges of our men. 
So fast was the pace of the soldiers across the 
valley and up the hill that they threw away their 



110 The Fall of Santiago. 

side arms and accouterments in order to move 
the faster. The Spaniards moved back as the 
men advanced, but made a stand in the intrench- 
ments and blockhouse. Between these and the 
line of advance there was an open space of roll- 
ing land, some three hundred yards across. It 
was when the Americans emerged from the bush 
into this open space that the Spanish made their 
last attempt to drive back the attacking line, and 
it was when they saw how the dismounted cav- 
alrymen swept across the clearing notwithstand- 
ing the way in which they went down under 
the close range INIauser fire that they gave up the 
impossibility of resisting men who did not know 
when they were beaten, broke and ran. On 
swept our men, and with a mighty cheer the hill 
was won, Rough Eiders andEegulars, white and 
black, shaking hands and cheering again when 
they found breath — brothers in arms indeed. 

Inside the trenches were many Spanish dead; 
within the blockhouse were seventeen more, and 
a long line of wagons with wounded could be 
seen making its way down the Santiago trail. 
Altogether and from after reports the estimate 
is made that the Spanish losses at La Guasima 
numbered fully one hundred and fifty. Our 
losses were, of the First United States Volunteer 
Cavalry, eight killed, thirty-four wounded; of 



The Fall of Santiago. Ill 



o 



tbo First IJDitod States Cavalry, seven killed, 
eight wounded ; of the Tenth United States Cav- 
alry, one killed, ten wounded ; that is, out of a 
total strength of nine hundred and sixtj'-four 
men, sixteen were killed and fifty-two wounded. 
Beside these losses to the combatants, Edward 
Marshall, a New York Journal correspondent, was 
seriously and for a time it was believed fatally 
wounded. Ho was in the advance with the 
Hough Riders as they moved up the trail and 
was plodding, struggling along with the best of 
them when the murderous volley from the Span- 
iards stopped the advance. Though warned of 
his danger he had taken a place underneath a royal 
palm from which he could note the progress of 
the fight, when a Mauser bullet passed from the 
groin, the point of entrance, through the body 
and shattered the base of the spine. Though 
told by the surgeons on the field that the blow was 
ft mortal one, Marshall kept his ground. It was an 
illustration of another kind of bravery than that 
of the fighting men. It was the bravery of duty. 



112 The Fall of Santiago. 



CHAPTER VI. 

HOW THE ARMY MAUCHED TO THE FRONT. 

The skirmish of La Guasima took place on June 
24 ; the first assault on the outposts of Santiago 
occurred on July 1. Between those dates, how- 
ever, much was done, and while that much did 
not include any more brushes Avith the Span- 
iards, it was a time of hard and testing experi- 
ence. The story of the great fighting will be 
found in the next chapters, but he who would 
read these chapters with understanding had bet- 
ter read this. 

Anticipatory descriptions, it is true, are al- 
ways more or less looked upon as halts in a fair- 
running story, but sometimes these halts are 
necessary for the full appreciation of the develop- 
ment of that story. The description of the bat- 
tles of San Juan and El Caney, however lamely 
toid, cannot fail to make the pulses beat, but 
unless one puts oneself more nearly into the 
place of the American soldier than would be the 
case should the story jump from the landing at 



The Fall of Santiago. 113 



&^ 



Daiquiri to tho dftsh up tho great hills that form 
the outposts of tho Gran Mesa, one will not get 
truly into tho very heart of the task •which was 
set the American soldier to do. 

"When the news of the landing at Daiquiri 
reached Washington the great war maps of San- 
tiago were siiread out, and it was noticed with 
satisfaction that from the landing-place there rau 
a broad highway over the hills to Santiago. But 
as was tho case when studying the road that was 
taken by the Rough Eiders, the inaccuracies of 
the great map of Cuba, compiled though it was 
by the Spanish government, were astonishing. 
For instance, the railroad, which really ends at 
Daiquiri, is set down as turning inland from a 
point some five or six miles to the east of its 
actual terminus. The suburb of El Caney is 
written Guay, and is located five miles to the 
west of where it really is; Siboney is not on the 
maps at all, while towns which are marked inland 
were found to be on the seacoast, and those 
which were set down on the cliffs were found to 
bo miles back in the woods. To add to these 
contradictions of topography it was found that 
the residential nomenclature was not at all that 
of the map-maker, while the Cubans, possibly as 
another evidence of their love of freedom, had 



114 The Fall of Santiago. 

from two to half a dozen different names for the 
same place. 

But, perplexing as these contradictions and 
mislocations were, they faded into insignificance 
before the upset of transportation plans and the 
new set of physical problems which were caused 
and presented by the vast difference of what was 
seen on the maps and what was found on land. 
In the matter of roads it may be set down at once 
that the invading army found none that could be 
called military highways. What it did fifid were 
trails and bridle paths. On the maps and from 
the sea were shown and could be seen the larger 
outlines of the Sierra Cobre, but these broad 
outlines concealed a mass of smaller, but steep, 
declivities, cross-running hills, swampy gullies 
and rocky spurs that lined the face of nature as 
thickly as do the wrinkles on that of an old 
Breton fisherwoman. 

The Gran Mesa was to Major-General Shafter 
the great alluring spot from the very outset. 
To gain that plateau was the central point of his 
strategy. That plateau was, as it were, like the 
palm of an inviting hand laid down midway on 
the map between Daiquiri and Santiago. To 
the west of the plateau, that is Santiagowards, 
it was flanked by a system of hills whose slopes 
trended down to the city. The occupation of 




Cuban scouts on the advance from El Caney to Caimanes to intercept General Pando. 



The Fall of Santiago. 115 

tLis plateau thcrofore, with its bulwark of hills, 
meaut tho cominantl, tho actual investment, of 
Santiago. To throw his men right across tho 
country, until it should form a lino across theso 
uplands, was therefore Shafter's first necessity. 
It was, to use the same figure of speech, as 
though, having gained a place on that inviting 
palm of the Gran Mesa, tho hand w^ero turned 
until it rested on edge, forming a living line of 
circumvallation which was to move closer and 
closer on the invested city. 

Two other factors were to be considered in tho 
coming fight: First the possible reinforcement of 
General Linares by General Pando; second, the 
possible escape of General Linares from Santiago 
when ho found that the day had gone against 
him. Shafter had fourteen thousand seven hun- 
dred men; the best, tho most reliable, estimates 
placed tho army of Linares at eleven thousand 
four hundred and thirty, while Pando was re- 
ported as having nine thousand under him at 
Holquin. To prevent Linares from slipping 
away from and Pando from slipping into Santi- 
ago, therefore, it was an essential that— still 
keeping to the simile of the hand — the finger 
tips should be crooked until the living line 
which it indicated had closed around Santiago 
Bay on the north and westward. So the moving 



116 The Fall of Santiago. 

and crushing process was to go on until Santiago 
was in the American grasp. 

By looking at the accompanying map it will 
be seen that were a line drawn across the three 
points, Aguadores, San Juan and El Caney and 
then curved around to the westward, it would 
roughly form a parallel line to that of the Santi- 
ago Bay shore. These three places, because of 
their position and because they were the foci of 
the Spanish defenses, were therefore selected as 
the three main points in the plan of occupation 
and investment, with San Juan as the center. El 
Caney as the right and Aguadores as the left of 
attack. General Lawton's division was to as- 
sault El Caney; General Duflield was to march 
against Aguadores, and Generals Wheeler and 
Kent were to advance against San Juan. 

This broad outline of Shafter's plan of attack 
is all that need bo given here. Yv'hat is next to 
be shown is what our men encountered as they 
moved into position to carry out this plan of 
attack. In order that there might be as little 
congestion as possible and iii pursuance with the 
commanding officer's policj' of hurry work, the 
troops were hastened forward from the landing- 
places as rapidly as possible. The next days 
saw the entire debarkation of the first army of 
invasion, this work having been expedited by 



The Fall of Santiago. IIY 



to^ 



Bending some of the transports into the adjoin- 
ing covG of Siboney after it bad been ridden of 
the enemy by the dismounted cavalry on June 
24. It was a fatal expoditencss as it proved, for 
though the selection of this enticing, vine- 
embowerod little hamlet by the sea was undeni- 
ably useful as a second and additional point from 
which to hurry troops inland and now base of 
supplies, it proved afterward to bo the starting 
point of a plague that meant a shallow Cuban 
grave for many a good man. 

In the first days the march toward Santiago 
was generally begun in the early morning or the 
late afternoon, but toward the last, regiments, 
companies and troops wore sent forward at anj- 
hour, no matter what the position of the sun. 
Each regiment, company or troop went forward 
with a swing, but as the days of weary climbing 
through brush and undergrowth, over rocks and 
across gullies went on, the very life seemed to 
go out of the men. 

The curious tourists who will flock to Santiago 
and walk back over the road from the lovely 
suburb of El Caney to Daiquiri and note that 
between the metropolis of eastern Cuba and the 
landing-place of the iron company there is a 
road, and a moderately good one, will fail to un- 
derstand the true character of the Via Dolorosa 



118 The Fall of Santiao^o 



C3" 



over which our troops had to make their way. 
Before these troops had stamped it into some- 
thing like a roadbed and the engineers had been 
fitfully at work, before the brush had be^n cut 
away and the swamps logged into something ap- 
proaching passability, every step was a labor. 
Then the roads outside the one main route were 
simply errant paths through dense tropical for- 
ests, over sun-scorched patches of desert and 
through rank grass and tangled weeds which 
were as ropes and nets to the feet of the men. 
There were no bridges over the streams, no tres- 
tles across the gullies, and nowhere were the 
paths wide enough for two vehicles. What this 
moment was the trickling remnant of a stream in 
a rocky bed became a torrential river after five 
minutes' of cloudburst in the mountains; the 
engineers' makeshift bridges were swept away 
time and again; wagon trains were stalled all 
along the line of march, communication was at 
times entirely interrupted between the front and 
the shore depots, and as an example of the condi- 
tion of things it may be stated that during the 
four days preceding the surrender it was only 
possible to get to the front one light battery of 
the six brought by General Randolph, while not 
a single one of the heavy siege guns was taken 
off the transports at Siboney. 



The Fall of Santiago. 119 

The experience which had been that of the 
First and Tenth Cavalry and Foii^h Riders was 
repeated in the case of the trooji.s in the main 
advance. "When they started on the march every 
man went in full marchinjjr order. That meant 
rifle, cartridKCR, bayonet, pistol, canteen, 
poncho, half of a shelter tent, rations and what- 
ever else the man mij^ht like to burden himself 
with. The men had worn these traps on the hot 
but breezy days when they were in Camp Black, 
on the hotter and broezeless days when they 
were at Chickamaug:a, in the sweltering pine 
groves back of Tampa, and in the oven-like 
plains of our great middle basin, but none of 
these experiences had fitted them for what they 
were enduring now. As the regiments moved 
from the beaches up into the trails, they were as 
presentable and trim a set of fighting men as one 
would wish to see. When they had got into po- 
sition along the line of attack they were as 
untrim, un-uniformed and bedraggled a lot of 
fighting men as ever did great deeds. As they 
struggled up the hillsides and tramped down 
the slopes the packs shifted and slipped and bore 
down on them ; and as the sun beat down on the 
lines of men that were stretched for miles 
through this terrible country the packs and 
bundles and impedimenta slid about as though 



120 The Fall of Santiago. 

they "Were alivo, and gained in wei?;ht from 
pounds to tons. In the woods the packs caught 
in the overhanging underbrush and sent the men 
stumbling and falling. In the open places the 
sun was like a furnace and the packs were like 
lead. At last one man threw his blanket away 
and then was begun over and carried out that 
scene of derobement and dispossession which had 
marked the progress of the dismounted cavalry- 
men. Blankets were strung along the bushes as 
though some flock of gigantic sheep had gone 
through and had left tufts of wool on every 
bush. After the blankets went cans of meat, 
then the shelter tents, then the cooking outfit, 
then coats and underclothes and anything else 
except his fatigue uniform, his rifle and cart- 
ridges, for these last two essentials every man 
kept. 

This was while the sun was blazing, but when 
the sun set there came another evil out of this 
strange land. The awful heat passed and with 
the night air came a penetrating, damp chill that 
seemed to touch the bone. 

All during the day not even the liveliest imagi- 
nation could conceive of such heat being followed 
by any such poetic relief as "the cool of the 
evening," nor were the evenings cool, but it was 
at that crisis of the night, the early hours of 



Tho Fall of Santiago. 1^1 

dawn, that the searching, penetrating cold came 
upon the men. So cold indeed was it at this 
time, partly hy comparison with the hot day and 
partly as a positive condition, that the men were 
actually awakened shivering at about two or three 
o'clock. Tho first consideration then was warmth 
and dryness, hut when another hour or so had 
passed and reveille had sounded at four o'clock 
another change had come and exercise seemed 
the desideratum in tho fresh of the morning. 
Another hour or two and as the sun mounted 
and the pitiless heat grew apace all the men 
wanted to do was to sit and rest. So the changes 
went on, from cool humidity to hot humidity, 
each change sapping away the very vitality of 
the men. 

A still more serious result to tho men came 
from their stripping themselves during their 
march. Not only did they throw away their 
heavy clothing, hut they rejected their food sup- 
plies, trusting to lack and the supply trains; or 
they abandoned their rations for tho simple rea- 
son that the rations were heavy and they were 
hot. But the supply trains, as has been inti- 
mated, were as rare as Sunday railway trains in 
Vermont, and the situation of the camps soon 
became a serious one. Officers and men were 
alike in their plight, but all through the ranks 



122 The Fall of Santiago. 

there was no complaining. The ready helping 
hand of good companionship was there and the 
clever combining, lending and aiding that went 
far toward relieving the individual discomforts, 
and that welded the companionship of the men 
into those strong bonds of friendship formed in 
times of trial which never break and live forever. 

One great practical lesson in the economy of 
the commissariat was learned in this march. 
"When the men left the landing-places they car- 
ried cans of preserved food — admirable forms of 
protected diet under certain conditions, but cans 
of meat and vegetables are decidedlj' iumpj' and 
uncomfortable adjuncts to a march through a 
tropical forest, and, it will be remembered, they 
were among the first things to be slung into the 
bush. Between a future meal of bacon and 
beans and a iirescnt bumping battering ram 
there was no choice, and the banging thing was 
discarded. The three essentials of food that the 
men clung to were coffee, hardtack and bacon — 
the standard rations — and it was proved again 
that with these three simples an army could be 
kept in well-sustained and fighting trim. 

The men on march, too, furnished a practical 
solution of the water question. Before the inva- 
sion of Cuba there were many learned discus- 
sions on water supply, the hygiene of water-drink- 



The Fall of Santiago. 123 

ing, clever arrangements for filtration and the 
establishment of condensing plants. Scientific 
men, military men and fadful men -wrote and 
talked about the water of Cuba and the water 
which our troops were to get while in Cuba. It 
was to be boiled and filtered and never drunk 
unless filtered and boiled. In theory, the 
columns of learned matter which were printed 
and the hours of clever talk which were given to 
the subject were admirable. In practice, the 
men drank the first water they came to. When 
the Spaniards withdrew from Daiquiri and Sib- 
oney they partially destroyed the water systems 
of those two places, but our engineers repaired 
them and the water taken from those tanks was 
freely used without boiling or filtering, and with- 
out any ill effects. In the inland march the men 
crossed many streams, largo and small, and the 
men drank of these streams without boiling or 
filtering and apparently without any ill effects. 

The Mater that did bother them was that which 
came down in sheets, cold drenching sheets, 
every time the black clouds swept across the 
Sierra Cobre. They had heard of the wet season 
in Cuba, but as their experience of Cuban heat 
transcended their imagination of it, so was it the ' 
case in their conception and experience of a rainy 
afternoon near Santiago. Before the storm 



124 The Fall of Santiago. 

came, the Bultry air grew still sultrier. From 
the trampled, beaten, crushed, tropical under- 
growth rose sickening odors and heavy miasmatic 
mists. As the heat grew fiercer, the odors and 
mists grew heavier. Every life-giving quality of 
the air seemed to be squeezed out of it, and even 
the myriad insects and crawling reptiles wore 
quieted. 

Then, just as the sizzling heat reached a 
spot where it apparently could go no further 
and be bearable, a zigzag flash, a thunderclap, 
and a cataract of ice-cold rain came simulta- 
neously, and every man was soaked and shiver- 
ing. If the men were marching, they found 
themselves suddenly wading through swift run- 
ning streams of cold muddy water, with what 
they had on changed from its reek of perspira- 
tion into cold, wet, clinging garments. If the 
men were in camp or the trenches, their fires 
were put out and every ditch became a mud pool. 
For two or three hours the icy water fell, until 
all the hillsides were moving with a floating mass 
of mud and leaves, and the muddy water in the 
trails had risen from sole to ankle and from ankle 
to legging top. Then, as suddenly as it had 
begun, the storm would come to an end, the sun 
came out hotter than ever; the wet ground 
steamed ; horrible crawling, flying things filled 



The Fall of Santiago. 125 



o" 



the muggy air, and from shivering the men 
passed to gasping. Yet through it all the mea 
pressed forward, far less complainingly perhaps, 
than they would have done had they been at 
home and a summer shower had spoiled their 
picnic. 

The flying pests of Cuba the men found bad 
enough, but it was the consensus of oiiinion 
that bad as gnats, mosquitoes and beetles were 
they were far less dreaded than the land crabs, 
and this because of the repulsiveness of the 
latter creatures. These hard-shelled, crawling 
things were everywhere, in the woods and on the 
plains; crowds of them in the gullies and troops 
of them on the hilltops. No matter where the 
men marched or where they halted, there were 
the squads, regiments and battalions of the land 
crabs, until the men were sickened at the sight 
and began to believe that, like sharks following 
a ship, the land crabs actually followed the 
army, a species of horrible camp follower. In size 
the land crabs varied from four to twelve inches 
across the carapace, its covering area being, of 
course, increased by legs and claws, the latter 
qu te formidable implements. 

Ihey are rather gay-colored creatures, their 
tints ranging from light-green to dark-blue, the 
blue crab being the most objectionable. They are 



126 The Fall of Santiago. 

decidedly gregarious and travel in hosts, and are 
not inclined to let anything interfere with their 
line of progression. Individually, the crab walks 
in a decidedly aggressive attitude. The eye 
stalks are thrust out, the body tilted sidewise, 
and the claws thrown upward and outward like 
sabers. He has the strange fashion of moving 
forward for a few feet then rapidly scuttling 
either to the right or to the left, and then as 
abruptly walking backward. As this decidedly 
eccentric method of advance seems to animate 
the whole body of crabs, the aggj-egate result is 
that this whole body of crabs seems to move 
along in a wave-like motion. As they move they 
clash their claws and rattle among themselves, 
so that when making their way through the brush 
or grass the sound of their progress is so singu- 
larly like that of men marching that our pickets 
constantly mistook the advance of the crabs for 
the sudden onslaught of the enemj'. As the men 
marched the crabs marched too in parallel 
columns; and whe:i the men halted for the night 
the crabs swarmed over the sleeping men and 
acted in a generally inquisitive and unpleasant 
fashion. Many stories were spread by imagina- 
tive Cubans of the uncanny results of crab-nips, 
of nocturnal attacks on protruding toes, and of 
the desperate results that would follow should a 



The Fall of Santiago. 127 

crab desire the protriuling toe; of their living in 
the poisoned shade of witch trees and so on, but 
in plain truth they are the creeping buzzards of 
the West Indies, and aid those disagreeable look- 
ing bird in the great work of scavengering. 

A glance at the map will show that Santiago lies 
at the head of a landlocked bay, six miles from the 
sea. Aguadores lies two and a half miles east of 
the entrance to the harbor and is directly south of 
Santiago itself, the bay shore curving northward 
to El Morro. Four miles southeast of Santiago 
is the ridge of San Juan. Three miles northwest 
of Santiago is the suburb of El Caney, which is 
six miles due north of San Juan. A line from 
El Caney to Aguadores through San Juan would 
be a fairly straight line in a southwesterly di- 
rection. Both San Juan and El Caney are 
perched upon hills, the flat-topped steep-sided 
formation before alluded to as the distinguishing 
mark of Las Altares characterizing the scores of 
hills into which the country is broken to the east 
of Santiago Bay. On the flat tops of these hills 
the rich Santiagoans had built themselves broad- 
eaved country seats, or farmhouses, the altitude of 
the locality and the general park-like character 
of the country making these plantation houses 
charming homes. 

The Spanish engineers were quick to see the 



128 The Fall of Santiago. 

strategical importance of these hills as natural 
defenses and were most ingenious in their elabo- 
rations upon nature's work. The farmhouses, or 
country seats, were quickly and effectually trans- 
formed into forts by filling the spaces between 
the piazza pillars with ramparts of broken stone 
or earth bags and by breaking out loopholes in 
the walls. "Where no farmhouses stood they 
built a blockhouse of planks and stone, and 
perched these so promiscuously and generously 
about that from any commanding elevation one 
might count a score of these tiny forts. 

As a further elaboration in the system of de- 
fense the engineers made free use of Weyler's 
great barbed-wire idea. Barbed-wire fences 
were found bordering the trails and it was 
learned that these had been erected for the sim- 
ple purpose of keeping the Cubans in the right 
path, any Cuban caught straying in the woods 
being summarily treated as one who had crossed 
the deathline; or at least as one who was a 
poacher on preserves, or a suspicious character. 
Barbed-wire was strung around the approaches 
to every blockhouse. The Eough Eiders had 
found it impeding their way when they charged 
the hill at La Guasima and the men who fought 
at San Juan and El Caney found that, like the 
experience of Cuban heat and Cuban jungle, the 




■5 E 



c :i 

3 -5 



^ en" 

E g g 



E h 



The Fall of Santiago. 129 

reality went far ahead of oven the most vivid 
anticipation. 

The quartermaster-general had been forwarned 
of the barbed-wire defenses which the American 
army would meet with in Cuba and had fore- 
armed the men with nippers, but nippers, like i 
cans of corned beef, are hard things to carry on 
a hot march, and were among the first of the im- 
pedimenta to be dropped. Moreover, when the 
barbed-wire fences were met with they did not 
yield to the nippers as easily as had been antici- 
pated. The nippers had been supplied on the 
belief that the barbed-wire abatis was composed 
simply of wire fences of from four to eight feet 
high, and that a few vigorous nips along the 
posts would result in loose strands that could 
easily be thrown back and so open the way to 
the men. It was found, however, that the 
barbed-wire defenses were not built on this simple 
fence plan. Instead of being stretched in regular 
strands the wire was strung from tree to tree at 
the most irregular heights possible. Some- 
times, a strand was found fastened to a stump 
and running thence to a neighboring tree at such 
an angle as to carry it ten feet from the ground, 
from which it slanted down to the next tree to a 
height of three or four feet from the ground. 
Six or eight strands of the wire would thus be 



130 The Fall of Santiago. 

run irregularly along for miles, and it meant a 
hunt to discover each individual strand. 

To have done with the barbed-wire question 
so as not to let it interfere with the plain de- 
scription of the fight, it may be said here that 
both at San Juan and El Caney it was frequently 
found that the only way to discover the presence 
of a barbed-wire fence was to run against it. At 
the last slope-down of a steep hill, in the pools 
and rivers, strung along through the rank grass 
and surrounding the rifle pits and trenches in a 
perfect maze — were these abominable wire fences. 
Nor were they made of single strands, but were 
often most elaborately put together, being in 
some cases twisted together like ropes and so 
matted that it was impossible to get a finger in 
between the interstices. Before such unusual and 
artful use of barbed-wire the nippers with which 
the American soldiers were provided were not 
much more useful than cheese scoops would be 
as rock drills. 

To the array of blockhouses and forts and the 
tangle of barbed-wire, the Spanish engineers had 
added admirably devised lines of deep but nar- 
row trenches, running in such lines that the 
riflemen holding them could easily move from 
one range to another. Line after line of these 
trenches and rifle pits was found at every pos- 



The Fall of Santiago. 131 



o 



sible point of vantage, the whole system of de- 
fense exciting the admiration of our engineers. 

Thus it Avas that the army pushed its way into 
the line of attack, and it was after passing 
through such trials of advance, climate, country, 
and pests that it found itself, on the night 
of June 31, drawn up across the island in a 
great broken line of three divisions from El 
Cauey in the interior to Aguadores on the sea. 
But they had all been natural difficulties to over- 
come and bear, none of battle, for, save for the 
brush at La Guasima, the Spanish had made no 
resistance to the army's advance. The men had 
practically landed without opposition, and just 
as it was Shafter's bustling policy to push his 
men forward until they occupied the outposts of 
Santiago, so it turned out now to be the Span- 
iard's equally well-settled plan of campaign to 
let that advance be made until those outposts were 
reached, and then to defend them to the death. 



132 The Fall of Santiapjo. 



o 



CHAPTER VII. 

HOW EL CANEY WAS CARRIED. 

In the future days of criticism much will 
doubtless be said as to the wisdom, indecision 
and fortuitous fulfillment of Shafter's plan of 
campaign. But this book is a record of events 
and not a discussion of military technicalities. 

Doubtless Shafter expected to do much more 
in certain directions than he did; and in other 
directions much more was done than he had an- 
ticipated would be the case. The capture of El 
Caney was to be effected, so Shafter thought, in 
the early hours of the day, after M'hich the 
troops were to join those before San Juan and the 
day was to be wound up in a joint attack on and 
capture of San Juan. As it turned out, El 
Caney offered a more stubborn resistance than 
did San Juan, and by the time the troops form- 
ing the right of the general advance had carried 
the suburb, San Juan had been stormed and 
taken. 

It is a fact, too, that Shafter planned the re- 



The Fall of Santiaf^o. 133 

duction of an intrenched city without seige guns 
and mortars, these having been left on the Ori- 
zaba. But in explanation of this it may bo said 
that Shafter, in the choice between an assault by 
unsupported infantry and waiting for the engi- 
neers to put the road into sufficiently good con- 
dition to admit of moving the siege batteries to 
the front, decided that it was better to attack the 
Spaniards by his army as it stood with such field 
pieces as could be easily moved forward, rather 
than to expose his men to climatic effects. As 
the men stood they were yet full of the strength 
and vitality they had brought with them, but 
subject them to a long exposure to summer rains 
and heat, argued Shafter, and the debilitating 
powers of these enemies would seriously diminish 
the fighting quality of his army. 

The disposition of the army, as decided on at 
a council of war on Juno 29, was as follows : 
Lawton's Division, the Second, was sent against 
El Caney; Kent's Division, the First, and 
Wheeler's Cavalry Division were to proceed 
against San Juan; Duffield's Brigade was to 
move on Aguadores. In the order of description, 
the fight and fortunes of the men at El Caney 
will be first taken up. The Second Division was 
constituted as follows : 

First Brigade, General Ludlow commanding, 



134 The Fall of Santiago. 



o^ 



Eightb, Twenty-second, and Second Massachu- 
setts. 

Second Brigade, Colonel Miles commanding 
Fourth, First, and Twenty-fifth. 

Third Brigade, General Chaffee commanding, 
Twelfth, Seventh, and Seventeenth. 

Captain Capron's Battery E, First Artillery, 
was to shell the town and General Garcia, as 
our ally, held a thousand Cubans under him. 
Later in the day General Bates' Independent 
Brigade was attached to Lawton's division. 

General Lawton, following the council of war, 
not only went over the field carefully on the 
map, but in company with his three brigade 
commanders made a reconnaissance on June 30. 
Lawton reported that he found the Spanish 
ground much stronger than he had anticipated, 
and in the absence of heavy artillery he sug- 
gested that he move his forces at night and so 
get into position for delivering his blow in the 
early morning. Lawton failed to get proper 
support for his suggestion and, with the excep- 
tion of Chaffee's Brigade, the division slept on its 
arms. General Chaffee, however, worked his 
men well to the northward all during June 30, 
and before the night was over had his men in 
position, well intrenched to the north and east 
of El Caney. At early dawn on July 1 the other 




j: c — 

>■ 'c 2 

2 " 

4 ^-^ 



^ 


u 


rt 




^ 


?5 






n^ 


ij 






c" 


o 


yv 








-C 


5P 



"7 5 



n -a 
S 2 



The Fall of Santiago. 135 

troopa of Lawton's Divisiou made their way to 
the positions previously designated for them to 
occupy. Ludlow's Brii^ado and Garcia's Cubans 
moved still further around El Caney until they 
rested on the west of the village in order to cut 
off the retreat of the Spaniards when they should 
be driven out of the town and attempt to retire. 
Colonel Miles' Brigade took up a position to the 
east of El Cancy ; Bates, on his arrival, forming 
to the southeast. 

By this disposition of troops it will he seen the 
division occupied a broad segment of a circle 
with El Caney as the center. Dominating El 
Caney was a stone fort perched on the very apex 
of a hill, which looked like a minature peak, and 
at whose base lay the village. The fort was a 
mediaeval affair, four square, except for a round 
bastion at each corner. But mediaeval as it 
was in construction, it was filled with men 
armed with modern guns and proved a veritable 
citadel. It was toward this fort that Captain 
Capron directed the fire of his light battery of 
four guns. He had planted his battery before 
sunrise on a bluff about a mile and a half distant 
fi'om the town, there being a deep swale of roll- 
ing land between the fort and the battery, the 
emplacement of the battery having been effected 
without the enemy's discovering the move. 



136 The Fall of Santigao. 

It was yet dark when at five-forty on the morn- 
ing of July 1 Captain Caprou gave the command 
"Cannoneers, take your places." The sun was 
still hidden behind the high peaks of the Sierra 
Cobre, but there was light enough to see the 
general surroundings, while with a good glass one 
could distinguish the Spanish soldiers moving 
about the trenches which were lined thickly in 
front of the stone fort, and other men on horseback 
riding out of the fort. Capron's four pieces, which 
were of 3.2 caliber, were lined up at some little 
distance apart, but with their fire all concentra- 
ted on the fortifications. The range was an- 
nounced to be from twenty-three hundred and 
fifty to twenty-four hundred j^ards. Just before 
the first gun was fired, and while comments were 
being freely made on the fact that no flag had 
been run up on the fort and surmises were being 
hazarded that the town had been evacuated, up 
popped the sun from behind the Sierra and up 
went the flag. Capron accepted this apparently 
as a defi, and immediately gave command to open 
the battle. He was the father of the young 
ofiicer who had been killed at the skirmish of La 
Guasima, and it seemed fitting that he should 
have the honor of opening the assault on the 
city. 

The first oi our shells brought no answer, nor 



The Fall of Santiago. 137 

did the next two or three, and the belief began 
to obtain that even if El Caney were not deserted 
there were no troops in it that would fight. 
Soon, however, an answer came in the shape of a 
Spanish shell, which burst on the roof of a small 
block house at one side of Capron's battery and in 
which a number of soldiers were standing to get 
a better view of the artillery duel. It wounded 
eighteen Americans and thirteen Cubans. 
This, however, was the best shot of the Spanish 
gunners for, while their line was moderately 
good, their range was generally too high. Cap- 
ron's shooting was excellent, but though many 
of his shells struck the stone fort and a small 
block house which stood on another hill back of 
it, his guns were too light to cause any very 
great damage. At half-past seven the artillery 
fire on both sides slackened, but half an hour 
later Capron began his share of it again, with re- 
newed energy. General Lawton's infantry being 
at that time prepared for its advance. 

The same swale which lay between the blufE on 
which Capron's battery was placed and the hill 
on which the stone fort was perched extended 
around the suburbs in moderately well-defined 
fashion, but broken by rolling land and gullies 
and small winding streams ; the general elevation 



138 The Fall of Santiago. 

of the country beiug lower to the left of the 
attack thau it was to the right. 

General Chaffee's Brigade began the infantry 
fight by moving along the extreme right over 
this higher ground. Then Ludlow's command 
began pressing across the low country to the left, 
both brigades moving forward in a series of 
rushes. The Spanish intrenchments stretched 
for a considerable distance to the right of the 
stone fort so that Chaffee's men were exposed to 
a heavy fire from the earthworks. The Span- 
iards, too, had thrown out sharpshooters all over 
the base and slope of the El Caney hill, and as 
our men dodged from cover to cover in single 
figures or rushed across a clear space in little 
groups, the men in the trenches fired by platoon 
and the sharpshooters picked off the advancing 
men. 

For a long time, that is for what seemed to 
them a long time, Chaffee's men, while making 
their advance, had found themselves shot down 
and wounded by a fire that came from the left, 
and they had begun to imagine that they were 
exposed to Ludlow's fire from down the swale, 
when they discovered a masked, or rather, half- 
hidden blockhouse, on one of the spurs of the 
El Caney hill. It was found, too, to be a place 
of extreme strength against an infantry attack. 



The Fall of Santiago. 139 

being made of double tbiclciiesscs of pine plank- 
ing with the intramural space filled with a lining 
of gravel and with earth heaped up around the 
base to a height of several feet, just above which 
embankment were narrow slits for the riflemen. 
Rifle pits also surrounded it, and around the 
rifle i)its was a maze of barbed wire. 

General Chaffee sent word to Captain Capron of 
the discovery of the block house and a fieldpiece 
was moved to a hillock where it could be 
trained on this Spanish pest hole, but the range 
was found to be too great, and as Chaffee's men 
at that time were swarming about the block- 
house, the cannon was called back. The taking 
of this blockhouse had occupied so much time 
that our men to the left had moved well forward 
to the edge of the swale before Chaffee was free, 
and the morning had, indeed, well advanced be- 
fore the division occupied anything like a well- 
defined attacking line all around El Caney. 

The Seventh was really the first regiment to 
get into commanding line; then came the Seven- 
teenth, while, little by little, through groves of 
royal palms and mango trees, over slippery trails 
and by short cuts in the jungle; across gulches 
and through the high Cuban grass the Twelfth, 
Twenty-second, and Twentj'-fifth got into line, 
then the Second Massachusetts, and so on, one 



110 The Fall of Santiam 



o" 



regiment after another, until the long line of blue- 
shirted and brown-hatted men was stretched out, 
and the long-range rifle fight of Mauser against 
Krag-Jorgensen and Springfield was faivlj' on. 

Foot by foot and rush by rush our men ad- 
vanced closer and closer, while the fire from the 
Spanish trenches and fortifications grew heavier 
and heavier. The men mostly crept along on 
hands and knees, or wriggled from point to 
point, but the officers led their commands with- 
out any attempt at cover, and in this waj' did 
their share toward contributing to the great 
mortality among the leaders which characterized 
the campaign. As the Seventeenth, for instance, 
moved to close up the gap in the line between it 
and the Seventh, Lieutenant-Colonel J. H. Has- 
kell led the way. It was across an open field, 
and as Haskell stepped out erect into the open 
space in the first line he fell. Lieutenant Dick- 
inson ran ahead and was also fatally wounded. 
It was in the advance across this open country, 
too, that the men suffered most severely. 

In fact, for the time, it was found impossible 
to further advance, and there the Seventh and 
Seventeenth lay under fire for about six hours. 
They poured their volleys into the Spanish 
breastworks, but apparently without effect; and, 
though the Spaniards could be plainly seen, 



The Fall of Santiago. 141 

something seemed to be wrong in our range, 
while the Spaniarcis were perfectly posted on the 
triangulation of every foot of land. The Spring- 
field muskets of the Second Massachusetts were 
even more than ineffectual at this long-distance 
fight, and made so much smoke that twice they 
were ordered to cease firing. Close to the 
Second Massachusetts were lined out the Twelfth 
and Twenty-fifth regulars, but though by dint of 
incessantly dropping his shells on the fort Cap- 
ron had succeeded in knocking out its corner 
bastions and rendering it comparativelj' innoc- 
uous, and though the fire of the Krag-Jorgen- 
sens was concentrated from all along our lines of 
regulars on the Spanish breastworks in a fierce 
continuous rattle, still the Spaniards kept up 
their volleys, while their Mauser bullets actually 
clipped off the grass tops which fell in showers 
on our men as though a mower were at work and 
chopped off twigs and branches in the trees above 
them as though a pruner were busy there. There 
seemed no possibility of cleaning out or silencing 
the trenches except by an advance in which 
decimation was the prospect, and as the hours 
wore on El Caney, which was to have been ours 
by a sharp and brilliant dash made before noon, 
was as bristling and defiant as ever. It was 



142 The Fall of Santiago. 

spoken of as " The Wasp's Nest," and well de- 
served its name. 

But our men crept doggedly on and, when 
the long string of wounded made a continuous 
procession to the rear and the dead about them 
grew hourly in numbers, they only pressed on 
the fiercer. What at times changed the fierce- 
ness of our men to a condition of actual frenzy 
was when the sharpshooters who had crept 
through gaps in our lines or had been hidden in 
the trees before our advance was made, fired for 
very wantonness upon our wounded and upon 
the Red Cross men carrying them from the field. 
To be shot at themselves was what our men ex- 
pected, because to shoot and to be shot was their 
business, but when the surgeons and hospital 
stewards toppled over, the volunteers fairly 
screeched with rage, while the regulars moved 
forward another foot and sent another bullet into 
the trenches. 

Finally the swale was crossed and the attack- 
ing line was all around El Caney's hillside. 
Then it w^as seen that the chief source of our 
slaughter lay in a breastwork which had been run 
around the very edge of the village, extending 
from one building to another, with extensions at 
right angles down the slope of the hill. As 
has been said, the stone fort stood on a separate 



The Fall of Santiago. 143 



O' 



hill with tbo village in a hollo-w beneath, and 
along the sides of this hill, too, trenches and 
breastworks had been run out at right angles so 
that shots from these could almost rake the whole 
length of our advancing line on the right. 

Slowly our lines crept forward, and upward, 
regiment after regiment dashing across open 
spaces and seeking cover in the thickets which 
dotted the slopes of the suburb. "When the term 
"regiment after regiment" is used it must not 
be understood as implying well-preserved regi- 
mental formation. Under the new condition of 
things, caused by the long-range rapid-fire 
weapons, it has been found wisest to scatter the 
forces so as not to subject troops to great loss by 
massing them, and at the same time to draw the 
fire of the enemy in a widely radiated direction. 
Even had not this new order of things been in 
existence as a codified plan of action, the nature 
of the ground over which our troops had to move 
here would have rendered even a battalion for- 
mation impossible. The Spaniards, it is repeated, 
knew the exact location of all the roads and paths 
and had the range perfectly, while our men as 
they advanced had to feel their way cautiously 
over rough and unfamiliar ground. 

Bravely as the dashes were made it was bitter 
and deadly work for our men and officers. If our 



144 The "Fall of Santiago. 

fighting was stubborn the resistance of the Span- 
iards was determined. Then, as though to add 
to the exactions of the day, at the very moment 
when things were at their worst at El Caney, the 
division commander at San Juan sent over to 
know if proceedings could not be hurried or 
abandoned so as to aid in the assault on San 
Juan. Before giving a reply, the courier from 
the center was taken down the line from Ludlow, 
on the extreme left, past Miles' brigade and 
Bates' independent brigade to Chaffee's position 
at the extreme right, all four brigades having 
been drawn into action by the tenacity of the 
defense. The proposition of virtually calling off 
his men and abandoning the results of a desperate 
half-day's work was laid before General Lawton, 
and he at once decided not to quit. Instead, and 
as though driven to desperation, word was sent 
all along the line that the trenches had to be 
taken and taken at once. And it was done in 
thirty minutes. 

Captain Haskell, of the Twelfth Infantry, led 
the assault, his long white beard flying out be- 
hind him as he rushed forward. Far around to 
the left General Ludlow, with his white sailor 
bat stuck on the back of his head, galloped along 
the front and bade his men follow. His horse 
was killed under him, but afoot he pushed on, 



The Fall of Santiago. 145 



o^ 



gloriously swinging his ridiculous littlo hat in 
his hand and still shouting to his men to come 
on. Two leaped out of cover and were shot down. 
The Twelfth and Twenty-fifth were almost de- 
prived of their officers in the rush. Lieutenant 
McCorkle was killed and Captain Lawards and 
Lieutenant Murdock fell wounded, the disable- 
ment among the officers being so great that at 
one time Lieutenant Moss found himself com- 
manding two companies. The Second Massa- 
chusetts struggled into the line of assault and 
Lieutenant Field was instantly killed. Lieuten- 
ant-Colonel Patterson, of the Twenty-second, was 
badly wounded and had to be sent to the rear, 
but there was no wavering among his men. 

At last, after dodging from tree to brush and 
from brush to gully with Capron's guns banging 
away and the Spanish Mausers volleying inces- 
sently, the first of the assaulting lines was actually 
formed under a group of trees at the foot of the 
hill. Then with a yell the troops, black and 
white and brown shot up the hillside, slashed 
down the wire fences and were in the trenches 
and had the fort. They were practically open 
graves and were filled with dead men. 

Between the fort and the village stood a block- 
house, and as the living Spanish soldiers leaped 
out from among the dead Spanish soldiers in the 



146 The Fall of Santiago. 

trenches and made for the blockhouse, our men 
■who were now swarming up over the ridge of the 
hill shot them as they ran, while those who had 
taken the fort joined in the slaughter. 

Horrible as were the trenches the fort was as 
bad. As Captain Haskell, with Captain Clark 
just behind him, and their men pressing all 
around them, carried the fort, they found ample 
and awful evidence of the murderous work done by 
our fire and of the stubborn holding out against it. 
Out of the entire garrison but one Spanish officer 
and four men were alive. Seven lay dead in one 
small room and forty bodies were scattered along 
the shooting ways, the walls were shattered, the 
floors ran blood and the walls were splashed with 
it. Just as the fort was captured some fleeing 
Spaniard turned half-round and lodged a ballet 
in the arm of Mr. James Creelman. He, like 
Mr. Marshall, was a Journal correspondent, and 
like Mr. Marshall had esteemed it his duty to be 
in the thick of the fight. 

With the fort and trenches in our possession 
the blockhouse was soon taken, and our men were 
scampering after the Spaniards as the3^ fled down 
into the village. Of the Spaniards who had tried 
to seek shelter in the blockhouse as they ran 
from the trenches but few escaped, so deadly was 
the fire of our men as they steadied themselves 



The Fall of Santiago. 147 

after the rush up the hillside and brought down 
their ruou with the accuracy born of long target 
practice; and somehow or other when the block- 
house was reached nearly all of the Spaniards who 
had succeeded in getting into that shelter were 
found dead, victims to the bull's-eye accuracy of 
our men as they drove their Krag-Jorgensen bul- 
lets through the loopholes at the Spaniards be- 
hind them. 

It was a weary set of men who found them- 
selves victorious at the top of the El Cauoy hill, 
but there was lots of light and fume in some of 
them yet, and these rushed into the town in order 
to bring down or round up a few more of the 
Spaniards. It was ugly work, for the town or 
village— and a pretty, quiet-looking village it 
looked from the top of the hill, with its red-tiled 
houses and mauresque church— proved to be a 
death trap. Its streets were festooned with 
barbed wire, the space between the pillars of the 
houses had been turned into forts by filling them 
breast high with stonework and across the roads 
had been placed barricades of fascines made by 
filling empty wine barrels with earth. But there 
was no fight left in the Spaniards now, and from 
houses and corners the soldiers crawled out in 
squads and surrendered to the number of one 



148 The Fall of Santiago. 

hundred and fifty-eight. So, with the afternoon 
sun well down was El Cauey won. 

The opposing forces, counting the relative 
character of the positions, were in number about 
equal. The Spaniards, with their usual power of 
minimizing defeat, claimed that the defense of El 
Cauey was made by six hundred men, but it waa 
later found that the garrison actually numbered 
over seventeen hundred men. But whatever 
their number, they fought to the death and held 
back Lawton for more than nine awful hours. It 
was nearly seven in the morning when Captain 
Capron fired his first gun, and it was five o'clock 
before El Caney fell. 

The fighting had been hard and hot all day. 
Though there had not been much steady march- 
ing, our men had been alert, and on the move all 
the day under a broiling sun. The water in 
their canteens was soon consumed, and the hunt 
for streams and pools was a long and dolorous 
one. 

The long-killing range of the Mauser rifle and 
the fact that the entire battlefield was the zone 
of fire was one of, if not the greatest, trial to the 
nerves of the men at El Caney. Troopers a mile 
behind our firing line were killed. As the Fourth 
Infantry, for instance, was marching to the aid 
of General Ludlow's Brigade, First Sergeant 



The Fall of Santiago. 149 

Kirby was shot squarely tLrough the heart al- 
though the distance from the front was over a 
mile. The consequence, apart from the trial 
to the spirit of the men which is the natural out- 
come of being killed by unseen enemies, was that 
when night came our dead and dying were 
scattered over the country for miles. The Span- 
ish prisoners were set to work burying their own 
dead while the freshest of our men went back on 
the quest for their fallen comrades. The rest of 
the weary troops were gathered up as best they 
might be, and during the night they got about 
three hours of fitful napping. At night the 
Cuban support, which had done little more than 
scouting duty during the day, moved out to take 
a further position to the westward of Santiago, 
and all night long men who had lost their com- 
mands were straggling into the companionship 
of their companies, which for the moment meant 
their home. Capron's men threw themselves 
beside the guns which they had been working all 
day. 

Then, notwithstanding all their fierce work on 
the previous day, when early morning came. 
General Lawton, leaving a garrison at El Caney, 
moved across country to help to strengthen 
Kent's line about San Juan. 

If the American soldiers were impressed with 



150 The Fall of Santiago. 

the desperate stubbornness of their Spanish op- 
ponents, it is also on record that the Spaniards 
were amazed at the brilliant courage of our 
roen. One of the few surviving Spanish oflQcers of 
the battle of El Caney, an aid on General Vara del 
Key's staff, and present at the death of that officer, 
has related his impressions of the engagement. 
The narrative, which is told in the officer's own 
words, gives the Spanish view — somewhat fan- 
tastic in certain particulars — of one of the hard- 
est-fought battles of the war. The narrator says: 

"Brigadier-General Joaquin "Vara del Rey, in 
command of the brigade of San Luis, composed 
of three companies of the Twenty-ninth regulars, 
numbering four hundred and sixtj'-seven men and 
forty-seven guerrillas, was ordered by General 
Linares to proceed from San Luis to Santiago, 
there to reinforce the garrison in the city. 

"We loft San Luis on June 23, marched to El 
Pozo, and thence to Santiago, where we stayed 
forty-eight hours, when we were ordered out to 
El Caney to strengthen the left flank of the 
Spanish lines. We arrived there on the 28th, in 
the evening, after an uneventful march. 

"On the afternoon of the 30th we noticed a 
balloon ascending in the air, where it remained 
about a quarter of an hour. After its descent we 
saw the enemy pick up their tents and move their 



The Fall of Santiago. 151 

camp, but as the night was falliug we were un- 
able to locate their new position, although we 
guessed at it pretty correctly. 

"We hurriedly dag trenches about three feet 
deep, in which the men fired kneeling. 

"We worked at the trenches and breastworks 
all through the night, assigned the men to their 
posts and placed thirty regulars in the fort or 
blockhouse known as El Paraiso, fearing a sur- 
prise from the enemy. 

"Our fears proved only too well grounded, for 
at daybreak the next morning, July 1, the first 
shell from the enemy's guns fell in the town. 

"The Americans simultaneously opened with 
four rapid-fire guns and kept up a volcanic fire 
until three o'clock in the afternoon. We had no 
artillery with which to reply, and soon realized 
that we had the fight of our lives on our hands. 
All the ammunition we had was twelve mule 
loads of eight cases each. 

"The enemy's fire w^as incessant, and we an- 
swered with equal rapidity. I have never seen 
anything to equal the courage and dash of those 
Americans, who, stripped to the waist, offering 
their naked breasts to our murderous fire, liter- 
ally threw themselves on our trenches on the very 
muzzles of our guns. 

"Our execution must have been terrible. We 



152 The Fall of Santiago. 

had the advantage of our position and mowed them 
down by the hundreds, but they never retreated 
nor fell back an inch. As one man fell, shot 
through the heart, another would take his place 
with grim determination and unflinching devo- 
tion to duty in every line of his face. 

"Their gallantry was heroic. We wondered at 
these men, who fought like lions and fell like 
men courting a wholesale massacre, which could 
well have been avoided had they only kept up 
their tiring without storming our trenches. 

"Our stock of ammunition was dwindling fast, 
we were losing rapidly, and were fighting the 
battle of despair, the inevitable staring us in the 
face. General Vara del Rey was standing in the 
square opposite the church when word was 
brought him that the last round had been served 
to the men. This was about three o'clock in 
the afternoon. 

"He at once gave the order to retreat, crying 
to his men, 'Salvese quien pueda!' 

"Hardly had he given the order before he fell 
shot through both legs. One of his aids, Lieu- 
tenant Joaquin Dominguez, turned to the general 
as he fell, exclaiming : 'General, what slaughter!' 
A bullet took the top clean off his skull, killing 
him on the spot. 

"In the meantime I had secured a stretcher 



The Fall of Santiago. 153 

and ordered four men to place the general in it 
and carr.v him to a place of safety. Bullets were 
■whizzing past us and falling like hail all around. 
It seemed that fate was against us. As thej' 
placed him in the stretcher General Vara del Key 
"was shot through the head and killed. 

"All four litter-bearers were shot and Lieuten- 
ant Antonio Vara del Eey, a brother and aid to 
the general, was wounded and taken prisoner. 
Earlier in the day Majors Aguero and Aragon, 
both on the general's stafU, had also been killed. 
Beside these, ten other ofScers were shot, and 
we had two hundred and thirty men killed and 
wounded. 

"At General Vara del Key's death all took 
flight, running down the hill and toward the 
woods and underbrush, in a mad effort to get 
awaj' with their lives. 

"Toward evening small bands of straggling, 
worn-out soldiers began to arrive in Santiago, 
and at half-past eight o'clock that night Colonel 
Punet came in with one hundred and three men 
whom he had been able to rally and bring into 
the city in some sort of order. 

"None of the blockhouses in the surrounding 
country was engaged that day, but in the early 
morning a shell from the American lines fell in 



154 The Fall of Santiago 



e>^ 



the San Miguel blockhouse, setting it on fire and 
killing seven men. 

"We estimated the enemy's forces engaged at 
El Caney on July 1 at three thousand men and 
their artillery at four rapid-fire guns. 

"It was the hardest fighting I have ever seen 
or ever care to see. The brilliancy and daring 
of the American attack was only equaled by the 
coolness and stubbornness of the Spanish 
defense. 

"The report that the body of General Vara del 
Eey had never been recovered is untrue. It was 
buried by the American troops and his grave was 
marked with a wooden cross. A decoration 
found on his breast was unpinned and later 
handed to General Toral by General Shafter. " 



The Fall of Santiago. 155 



CHAPTER VIII. f 

HOW SAN JUAN WAS STORMED AND TAKEN. 

The first part of the battle of San Juan was a 
muddle; the second part was a glory. 

Between the battles at El Caney and San Juan 
there were many salient points of similarity. 
In each case it was a fortified and intrenched hill 
that had to be attacked by our men ; in each case 
the battle was opened with an artillery duel; in 
each case the difficulties of the country prevented 
the ready deployment of our troops, and in each 
case the fight was won by a dash of men in which 
individual grit more than compensated for the 
absence of brigade tactics or orders. In the 
case of San Juan, however, all of these factors 
•were accentuated to an extraordinary degree, 

San Juan hill is a veritable Gibraltar. It 
sharply rises a bare, rocky, steep-sided ridge 
from out — to preserve the figure of speech — a sea 
of meadow land which lies all around its base, ' 
except on that side which faces Santiago. This 
meadow land, locally called a 'Paradise, ' is about 



156 The Fall of Santiago. 



o^ 



a third of a mile wide and is broken in its expanse 
of tall entangling grass by these three objects : To 
the left, supposing one had marched uj) the road 
from Siboney, a small green knoll; to the right, a 
shallow pool or lagoon ; between the lagoon and 
the road, another knoll somewhat higher than 
that to the left and surmounted by a pretty tiled- 
roof country seat. Looking at the San Juan 
hill from across the meadow land it would seem to 
be a clear rising, unbroken elevation, but a 
closer inspection of it would show that its surface 
Avas broken into a number of subsidiary ridges. 
On the topmost of these ridges was a large broad- 
eaved hacienda or farmhouse. 

The commanding qualities of this farmhouse 
the Spanish engineers were quick to perceive, and 
the dwelling was easily transformed into a strong- 
hold by piling up broken stone between the pil- 
lars of the piazza and by cutting loopholes in the 
walls of the house after the fashion found at El 
Caney and according to the plan generally de- 
scribed in the chapter dwelling on the march of 
the men to the front. Close to the house stood a 
shod and this also had been transformed into an 
improvised fort. Along the extreme crest of the 
hill, facing the meadow laud, the Spanish engi- 
neers had dug a line of trenches in which the 
Spanish rifleman might stand and shoot down 




^d^ 1 "^...^.ni.^f^ i-:>«4-.rv:Aii 



Copyright by Mail and Express. 



Looking across the meadow land to the San juan Hill — T}:il 
Rough Riders dashed in their assault — To the lef 




dier in the foreground is pointing to the lagoon across which the 
5en a wind of the road from Siboney to Santiago. 



The Fall of Santiago. 157 

any living thing that ventured to cross the 'Para- 
dise' without any danger to himself. Back of 
the hacienda was a dip, then a rise, and on the 
top of this rise had been built one of the charac- 
teristic Spanish blockhouses, before which had 
been dug a second series of trenches. Still fur- 
ther back was another rise, another blockhouse 
and another series of trenches. Around and in 
front of the San Juan hacienda were strung 
entanglements of barbed wire; these were 
repeated before each of the lines of trenches to 
the rear, were strung across the face of the hill, 
stranded in the grass of the valley and stretched 
through the lagoon. 

Let us now change our position as onlookers 
and stand on the San Juan hill, facing the road 
from Siboney. On the other side of the meadow 
land which swept round tbs base of the hill would 
be seen a broad exjiause of jungle and thicket 
which closed in on the grassy level in a well-de- 
fined boundary far as the eye could reach. To 
the right the country was hillj', the nearest emi- 
nence being that of EI Poso, on whose top was 
the home of a coffee planter. In an air line from 
the hacienda on the San Juan hill to that on El 
Poso hill the distance was, one would say, about 
two miles. To the left the wooded country 
sloped down to a moderate condition of plane, 



168 The Fall of Santiago. 

while iu the distance were the ranges of the 
Sierra Cobre foothills, among whose mazes our 
men had marched up from the coast. 

The lagoon was not the only water in the 
meadow land, for through it swept a bend of the 
winding San Juan Eiver. This bend of the river 
could be traced for some distance to the right, 
would have to be crossed if a man were to walk 
direct from San Juan to El Poso, and turned into 
the woods in about what would be the center of 
the landscape. To the left of where the river 
thus turned into the woods and just back of the 
hill and blockhouse, spoken of just now as being 
one of the three breaks in the meadow land, the 
main road from the coast emerged. All about the 
exit point of the road the timber and vegetation 
grew so thickly that its line in the woods could 
not be distinguished. Once out in the meadow 
land the roadway was fairly plain, as it turned 
around the end of the lagoon and up the side of 
the San Juan hill, passing back of the hacienda 
toward Santiago. 

If this description has been written clearly and 
has been followed closely the reader will see that 
the San Juan hill stood as a citadel in the path of 
those who passed to or from Santiago. It had to 
be taken before any advance could be made on 
the city. It was the Castilian lion in the path. 



Tlie Fall of Santiago. 159 

It will also be seen that in order to take the San 
Juan hill an advance would have to be made by- 
regiments strung out along the road in the 
woods, and that, in order to attack the hill in any- 
thing like formation, the troops would have to 
debouch from the wood roadway and then deploy 
along the meadow laud in the full face of the 
Spanish fire. It was a task before which a brave 
man might well recoil, and whose audacity ap- 
pealed most strongly to the foreign military rep- 
resentatives present. These seeing what had to 
be done and what was done, wrote it down as an 
achievement of personal bravery before which 
the word impregnable was but an empty sound, 
and as one of the most astonishing examples of 
successful mistakes. In a word, it was the as- 
sault by infantry of a stronghold which should 
only have been reduced by artillery. 

In meeting the problem thus presented to him, 
Brigadier-General J. Ford Kent, in command of 
the First Division, decided, naturally, that there 
were only two things to do — post what little artil- 
lery he had on El Poso hill, push his infantry as 
rapidly as possible up the road through the woods 
to the meadow land, and under partial cover 
of the artillery fire and the support of Lawton's 
men returning from El Caney, throw out his men 
into open order and carry the hill. This was 



160 The Fall of Santiago. 

done, though it was not done just as Kent had 
planned it should be. The troops in his division 
were these : 

First Brigade, General Hawkins, Sixteenth and 
Sixth regulars and Seventy-first N. Y. V. 

Second Brigade, General Pearson, Tenth, 
Twenty-first and Second, all regulars. 

Third Brigade, General Wikoff, Ninth, 
Thirteenth and Thirty -fourth, all regulars. 

Beside these he was assisted by General 
Wheeler's cavalry division, dismounted, consist- 
ing of the First, Ninth, and Tenth, regulars, and 
the Bough Eiders. 

The artillery was under charge of Captain 
Grimes, his battery going into position and pre- 
paring its gun-pits close to the ruins of the El 
Poso farmhouse on the night of June 30. 

The morning was still and hot, hot with a trop- 
ical intensity, the meadow lands below being full 
of mist while the blue of the sky had a coppery 
tinge. The little dismantled ranch house with its 
tiled roof and rusted bell were just below 
Grimes' battery, and, barring this battery, the 
v/hole scene was as innocent as a picture. Not a 
man could be seen at San Juan, and there was not 
a sound from the right to indicate that up 
through the woods there was being pushed along 
winding column of American soldiers. At 



The Fall of Santiago. 161 

twenty minutes to seven, Grimes, who had the 
bespectacled air of a professor, gave the com- 
mand to lire, and our first shell went flying toward 
San Juan. Wherever it struck it did no damage 
and a few others were fired, not so much with 
a view of demolishing the fortified farmhouse as to 
find the enemy. He was found after ten shots, 
his answer coming in the shape of a muffled re- 
port from the hill and the hissing flight of a five- 
inch shrapnel shell which burst high in the air. 
It was a good line fire and the reserves were 
ordered into cover, but Grimes, like a very fierce 
professor now, kept his position and his com- 
mand to "aim" and "fire" went on as steadily aa 
the ticking of a sedate clock on a farmhouse 
stairway. So the give and take of the artillery 
part of the engagement proceeded until suddenly 
the Spanish fire ceased. But while it had lasted 
it had been deadly, for three of our artillerymen 
had been killed; three sergeants and a corporal 
of the battery had been wounded; in a dip under 
the hill twelve Cubans had been torn by the 
shrapnel, and in the wood road there had been 
terrible havoc. To that wood road it is now time 
to turn. 

At nightfall of June 30 the three brigades 
bivouacked along the San Juan road around 
Sevilla. They were up by daybreak, and about 



162 The Fall of Santiafro. 



e>" 



the time when Grimes began his battery fire 
HawkinSjWith the First Brigade, had reached that 
part of the road -where it was crossed by the Sau 
Juan River, about two hundred and fifty yards to 
the right of El Poso hill. This river rises in the 
hills northeast of Santiago and follows a devious 
way under various local names down to the coast 
where it empties into the sea at Aguadores. 

In its course its affluents cross the road from 
Siboney to San Juan several times, its course 
being so belooped in the neighborhood of San 
Juan that our troops had to ford it twice within 
a mile. The first of these crossings was that 
already referred to as being near El Poso, and 
the second was close up to the edge of the woods, 
where the forest ended and the meadow land 
began. Torrential stream as it is, it alwaj'S 
carries a considerable body of water spread over 
the large area usually occupied by streams that 
are accustomed to sudden accessions and diminu- 
tions, being full of gravel bars and water pits. 
The river was really the road maker, for the road 
was drawn across the river wherever a ford was 
found. 

Hawkins was moving smartly along the road 
and would have crossed both fords and have been 
at the debouche of the road into the meadow land 
had not the division commander (Kent) received 



The Fall of Santianro. 163 



Q^ 



orders from headquarters to give right of way to 
the cavalry which had been posted back of El 
Poso hill. The iufautry was accordingly halted, 
and as the cavalry came up the road and also 
halted at the first ford when it got there, the first 
of the series of congestions which naarked the 
gathering of the troops along the road thus took 
place. When the cavalry crossed the first ford 
and moved forward, Hawkins, seeing that his 
men were suffering severely from the Spanish 
fire, decided to move his men along as quickly 
as possible, and therefore ordered them to push 
alongside the cavalry, and this they did, so that 
Wheeler's division and the head of Hawkins' 
division were at this time marching in parallel 
lines, sometimes by file and sometimes two 
abreast. In such a movement of troops, even 
were the exigencies of travel alone to be con- 
sidered, anything like distinct regimental segre- 
gation would soon have been imperiled; but 
when to these moving, crossing, mingling lines 
of men along a wood road were added the 
deadly and pestiferous attacks of the Spanish 
riflemen and artillerists, the impossibility of 
keeping the regiments distinct can readily be 
understood. 

It had been expected, or at least hoped, that the 
attentions of Grimes' battery would keep the 



164 The Fall of Santiago. 

batteries and trenches at San Juan sufficiently 
employed to allow our men to advance up the 
road with only a moderate loss. The contrary 
was, however, the case and it was due principally 
to two causes — an experiment on our side and the 
Spanish sharpshooters. 

If any point has been dwelt on in this history 
it has been that of attempting to show that the 
march from the sea to Santiago was for the most 
part through roads which M'ere so bordered with 
forest and thickets of underbrush that, except 
when on an eminence, it was almost impossible 
to see bej^ond the turn of the road or to form 
any idea of what danger lurked in the tangles on 
either side. The consideration of hidden foes and 
attacks from ambush were always in the hearts of 
the men, if not always in the plans of the leaders. 
The same clever tactics and intimate local knowl- 
edge which were shown by the Spaniards at El 
Caney, La Guasimaand Guantanamo were shown 
here with extreme emphasis. The Spaniards who 
knew that the San Juan hill commanded the way 
to Santiago knew also every foot of the region 
roundabout. They were aware of the natural 
obstacles to advance, the turns of the river and 
the sharp outlet on to the meadow land and to 
these natural obstacles had added the active fight- 
ing one of sharpshooters in the trees. It has been 



The Fall of Santiae-o. 165 



to'^ 



noted that this irreguLar branch of the service 
"was found to be a favorite one with the Spanish 
strategj' all during the Santiago campaign, but it 
was usedw^lth unusual freedom around San Juan, 

Every tree from whose branches a turn of the 
road could be seen or guesse(J at seemed to hold 
a Spanish sharpshooter. 

As these fellows used smokeless powder it was 
almost impossible to locate them by casual ob- 
servation, and they had concealed themselves so 
cleverly in the foliage that it was sometimes im- 
possible to discover them by close examination. 
As the Sixteenth and Sixth regiments of Haw- 
kins' infantry and the cavalrymen of Wheeler's 
division were bunched together along the road 
about the fords, the sharpshooters in the trees 
reaped an awful harvest. The bullets kept chug- 
ging into our ranks and the men fell thickly here 
and there, and all at the hands of an absolutely 
invisible enemy. 

Men were shot not only in front and flank, 
but from the rear, the fire being practically all 
around them. Not only were the losses serious, 
but the possible demoralization of the men was a 
still more serious matter, and two companies of 
colored troopers, whose regimental number need 
not be given, were at last ordered into the woods 
as pot hunters. They were told definitely that no • 



1G6 The Fall of Santiago. 

prisoners were expected to be brought in ; that 
every Spaniard found in a tree was to be killed. 
The order was a plain, swift necessity and the 
troopers set forward to carry it out with equal 
plainness and dispatch. They stalked from tree 
to tree and wherever the ping of a Mauser was 
heard or the flash of a rifle seen, the colored 
hunter bagged his game. 

The term "brought down" his game can not be 
used for in many cases after the sharpshooter in 
the trees had been shot he did not fall. An in- 
vestigation of this peculiar result showed that the 
Spaniard had been tied up in the tree. His 
Mauser would fall, but the man would not. It 
was found, too, that the sharpshooters were 
generally well supplied with provisions, so that 
the plan of those who tied the men in the trees 
to have them stay there for some time was clear, 
although it was never quite clear whether the 
men had been tied to the branches with their own 
consent or not. The story obtains, although it 
has not been proved, that in many cases the men 
were tied by order of the Spanish officers and so 
tied that they could not get down even had they 
wanted to. No particular question was asked of 
the pot hunters as to their success, but as they 
were away a long time, as they had much hunting 
ground to cover and as the fire of the sharpshoot- 




^1 ^ 







LI ■%< 






o " 



" s 



The Fall of Santiago. 167 

crs certainly grew markedb^ less, it is to be under- 
stood that the grim hints which the huntsmen 
brought back of ghastly fruit left to rot in many, 
many trees were founded on desperate but neces- 
sary fact. 

Our experiment was that of a war balloon. It 
was in charge of the signal corps and was sent up 
under the care of Lieutenant Maxfiekl. 

The ascension of the balloon resulted in a bene- 
ficial discovery and a catastrophe. The dis- 
covery was of a masked road or trail which led 
oif to the left of the main road near the first ford 
and by following which a second way of reach- 
ing the open land could be had. The catastrophe 
was that the presence of the balloon was imme- 
diately divined by the Spanish leaders at San 
Juan to indicate the position of the troops and to 
show definitely that the Americans had reached 
the upper part of the road loading to the mead- 
ow land. Instantly, what shrapnel had been 
used in reply to Grimes' battery was deflected to 
the road, and every rifle in the trenches was 
pointed in the same direction. The sharp- 
shooters' fire had diminished, it is true, but the 
hail of the shrapnel and the swarm of Mauser 
bullets was worse. The killing power of the 
Spanish rifle at long range was never more dis- 
tinctively felt than at this time. It was a long- 



168 The Fall of Santiago. 

distance fight with a vengeance, but it was one 
in which our men had to stand and take without 
being able to deliver a reply. 

The discovery of the branch road was utilized 
as speedily as possible. The first regiment to be 
sent up to the left from the front was the Seventy- 
first New York Volunteers. By sending it up 
this trail, the regiment was at once separated 
from the rest of the brigade, the other two regi- 
ments, the Sixteenth and Sixth, both regulars, it 
must be remembered, being at that time engaged 
in squeezing and pushing its way forward as a 
parallel line to the cavalrymen of Wheeler's bri- 
gade. Between the volunteer regiment and the 
regiments of regulars lay the woods and thickets, 
not yet cleared of sharpshooters. The garrison 
on San Juan hill either knew from observation, 
or inferred, that the secondary road was being 
utilized, for no sooner had the first battalion of 
the Seventy-first started up the branch road than 
to the fire of the sharpshooters was added what- 
ever shrapnel and rifle volleys from the trenches 
were not given to the men in the main road. 
' The report of the division commander when 
dealing with this part of the day states that no 
sooner had the First Battalion of the Seventy-first 
been turned into this byway with orders to 
march up it and form so as to get into line with 



The Fall of Santiago. 1G9 

the other two regiraeuts of the division, than "it 
was exposed to such a galling fire that it recoiled 
in confusion on the rear." This is Kent's cold- 
blooded official statement and there can be no 
doubt as to its accuracy. Neither can there be 
any doubt as to the utter absence of anything 
like an extenuating or explanatory statement in 
the division commander's report. No refer- 
ence whatever is made to the fact that by thus 
ordering the volunteers up a side road, unsup- 
ported by regulars, they were at once thrown 
into a position of the most unusually trying 
character. It was not even a regimental advance, 
but the stringing out of a battalion along a nar- 
row road, where every step meant possible death. 
It is true that this is the sort of thing that all 
soldiers, whether volunteers or regulars, are ex- 
pected to encounter; but it is also true tbat this 
exposure of an unsupported battalion of volun- 
teers was one of marked severity. Due emphasis 
maj' be laid upon these conditions, it is believed, 
without in the faintest advancing anything in 
the nature of a special plea. 

The First Battalion was ordered to lie down, 
and it did so, and, by the bye, it was one of the 
crying faults of the volunteers in the whole San- 
tiago campaign that they did not lie down as 
much as they should have done to escape the 



170 The Fall of Santiago. 

Spanish fire. The regulars knew that seeking 
cover did not imply cowardice; the volunteers 
were afraid that it did. While the First Battalion 
was lying down, the Second and Third came 
steadily along and moved up the trail. 

At twenty minutes past twelve the Third Bri- 
gade, Wickoff's, reached the forks, and was sent 
forward by the left road, up which it marched, 
pushing forward past the volunteers and so to 
the edge of the woods. No sooner had the Third 
Brigade been thus disposed of than up came the 
Second Brigade (Pearson's), forming the rear. 
This brigade was split at the forks, the Tenth 
and Second Eegiments being sent up the trail to 
the left and the Twenty-first along the main road. 
In each case the different regiments were in- 
structed to form with their fellow regiments of 
the same brigade when possible. But by thus 
splitting the forces it came about that only in 
the case of the Second was anything like a bri- 
gade formation preserved. The troops stood in 
this wise: 

UP THE BRANCH KOAD. UP THE MAIN ROAD. 

First Brigade: Wheeler's Cavalry: 

Seventy-first New York Vol. First. 

Third Brigade: Tenth. 

Ninth. Ninth. 

Thirteenth. Rougli Riders. 

Twenty -fourth. First Brigade: 
Second Brigade: Sixteenth. 

Second. Sixth. 

Tenth. Second Brigade: 

Twenty-first. 



The Fall of Santiago. 171 

"When the Third Brigade reached the edge of 
the wood it found itself at a ford of the San 
Juan River, -which in its erratic course had turned 
that way. Wickoff saw that the only way to 
save his men from annhiliation in crossing the 
stream and gaining the open was to deploy and 
rush for it. Word was given to this effect, was 
passed along the line, and with a cheer everybody 
along the road started in on one of those dashing 
rushes which characterized the day. Through the 
jungle, across the stream knee-high, waist-high, 
and up and over its banks — slippery with the mud 
of the bottom lands and tangled with barbed- 
•^ire — across the shingle beds into which the 
feet slipped, the men rushed. Even the division 
commander acknowledges that in this wild dash 
for the open there was nothing approaching bri- 
gade formation. By companies, here and there, 
battalions now and then, and by regiments rarely, 
the Third Brigade, gathering up as it went the 
foremost of the Seventy-first New Yorkers, with 
Captain Goldsborough of Company M acting as 
their impromtu major, reached the open and 
actually formed into something like a well-defined 
line of assault. But it was bloody work. 

Wickoff was killed as he ran ahead, keeping 
the men together. Lieutenant-Colonel Worth of 
the Thirteenth took his place, and went down 



172 The Fall of Santiago. 

severely wounded. Lieutenant-Colonel Liscum of 
the Twenty-fourth, upon whom the brigade com- 
mand then descended, took up the lead with a 
cheer which had scarcely begun when he too fell, 
and as the brigade swept up to the hill it was 
under charge of Lieutenant-Colonel E. P. Ewers 
of the Ninth. Those who from the woods 
could see the burst of the Third Brigade and its 
lightning formation and dash across the open 
have said that it was one of the most brilliant 
and stirring things ever seen on a battlefield. 
It only lasted ten minutes, but in those ten 
minutes the brigade command had thrice de- 
scended on the field, while the brigade men lay 
scattered in pitiful numbers all over the Paradise. 
If the jam and congestion of men in the main 
road had been confusing while the two regiments 
of the First Brigade and Wheeler's dismounted 
cavalrymen were struggling for the right of way, 
it can be imagined what the congestion and jam 
were like when the regiments of the other bri- 
gades were added to the mass of men. The de- 
flection of part of the troops into the trail on the 
left was what might literally be called an avenue of 
relief, but, even with this, the two roads for miles 
back from the open were full of crowded columns 
of men all in more or less disorder, all exposed 
to a deadly fire which lasted all through the 



The Fall of Santiago, 173 

moruing hours and all anxiously waiting for a 
chance to get out and kill something they could 
see or bo killed by a visible enemy. To the lay- 
man the simple solution of the whole matter 
would, perhaps, seem a steady march along the 
roads and a quick burnt into the open of each 
company as it arrived at the meadow land, the 
rapid deploy of those who emerged and the con- 
tinuous accession to the deploy line of men from 
behind. In such a clearance of the congestion 
many would surelj' fall, but some would surely 
escape, enough, anyway, to form a good line of 
advance. But to the military leaders no such 
simple method of relief was found practicable, 
or, at any rate, it was not put into practice. 
Indeed, to the men in the woods, it looked as 
though the military leaders did not exactly know 
what to do, and in the same cold-blooded spirit 
of telling facts which characterizes Kent's report, 
it must be stated that on a quiet after considera- 
tion of the battle the surviving brigade and regi- 
mental commanders were of the very decided, if 
altogether unofficial, opinion that the day had 
been remarkable for its utter absence of either 
brigade or regimental orders received and carried 
out. 

Orders were issued which, if strictly obeyed, 
would have meant that some regiments would 



174 The Fall of Santiao-o. 



&" 



be Btill waiting in the San Juan road; and 
in other cases contradiction traveled so quickly 
on the heels of orders, and reaffirmations so 
quickly on the heels of contradictions, that some- 
times the order of the dispatches was mixed and 
a regimental commander was dutifully undoing 
that which he was expected to be performing. 

But of it all the Third Brigade, as has been 
said, did burst out into the open and, as it 
did so, the two regiments of Hawkins' brigade 
(the Sixteenth and Sixth) also broke from fhe 
mass of men at the head of the main road. 

The Third and First brigades were out, and 
those who stood on the top of El Poso hill and 
saw this burst of men said that the efflux of 
scampering, dodging, cheering men was like that 
of the frothy spume of champagne from two 
bottle necks. Almost at the same time, for chro- 
nological accuracy in such details as minutes 
seemed absolutely impossible in the face of the 
general and undefined advance, the cavalry 
division leaped free of the woods and made a 
dash for the hillock which has been described as 
occupying a point in the meadow land between 
the lagoon and the woods. With them, or after 
them, or close on the heels of Hawkins' regi- 
ments ran the Twenty-first regiment of Pearson's 
Second Brigade, while far to the left his other 



The Fall of Santiago. 1T5 

two regiments, the Tenth and Second, which were 
to the rear of Wickoff's brigade in the branch or 
path also broke cover and swept out behind the 
grassy knoll which has been described as occu- 
pying a point in the airline between El Poso and 
San Juan hills. These two regiments furnished 
a notable exception to the general method of 
advance, and did actually move forward in com- 
pany to the rear of the knoll. There they de- 
ployed and advanced in a line over its crest and 
into the meadow, which, now as far as the eye 
could reach, was alive with blue-shirted soldiers 
with their faces all turned one way — to the San 
Juan hill. 

What does it matter who got there first? The 
division commander confesses his inability to 
say, and the one incontrovertible fact is that the 
Sixth and the Sixteenth on the right, the Ninth, 
Thirteenth and Twenty-fourth, and the fighting 
battalions of the Seventy-first New York Volun- 
teers all got to the top of the hill about the same 
time, and that the leading men were there at 
some minute between 1:25 and 1 :30 p. m. A 
simple statement this, made as the result of a 
dissection of varying reports in the search for 
truths, but covering a collection of stirring deeds 
such as will be to the history of the American 
soldier what that of Tel-el-Kebir is to the British. 



1T6 The Fall of Santiago 



o" 



The battle of San Juan has been called a battle 
of squads; it was really a battle of men. It was 
not the esprit du corps, though that existed, 
which carried the day ; it was the esprit 
d'homme. Out where the Sixth and Sixteenth 
were plunging forward, had the day depended on 
orders, it would have been a disaster instead of 
a victory. Captain Kenon, Company E, of the 
Sixth, and Captain Byrnes, Company F, had got 
out and were lining forward when the two met a 
company of the Sixteenth, merged and went on 
again, without any company division. Kenon 
and the men who followed him, went up the hill 
in a flanking way, then turned at right angles to 
face the first blockhouse. When he reached the 
top and turned he was alone. His men had 
taken another line of attack, and when the regi- 
ment behind him came piling up it proved to be 
Byrnes' men, or, at least, a much-mixed lot who 
were following Byrnes. Kenon and Byrnes 
shook hands, mutually congratulating each other 
on being the first to reach the summit, when 
there was a cheer to the left, and Lieutenant Ord 
was seen leaping across the trenches with a file 
of men behind him. Ord was a staff officer, but 
had joined the firing line, and in the climb up 
the hill had gathered a promiscuous lot of 
soldiers whose regimental numbers included 
almost everything on the field. 



The Fall of Santiao:o. 177 



o" 



"When the Sixth and Sixteenth started from 
the woods Hawkins placed himself between the 
two regiments and cheered his men along, and 
when he panted to the top and was cheered by 
his men, there were as many of Wickoff's 
troopers about him as of the regiments he had led. 

Even in the assault on the trenches, and the 
confusion which followed it, the men on the hill 
could hear the yell of the Rough Riders and 
colored troopers as they, too, rushed down the 
slope of the hill on which stood the blockhouse, 
which they had assaulted and carried, and trot- 
ted and pulled themselves up the San Juan hill to 
be in at the death. General Wheeler, sick and al- 
most sunstruck though he was, had stuck to his 
division in the "Bloody Angle" and struggled for- 
ward to watch the charge of his horsemen on foot. 
He saw the lightning fall of the blockhouse, and as 
he saw it the memorable but most forgivable 
mistaken cry escaped him of "There go the 
Yankees. Give it to 'em, boys!" Between the 
blockhouse hill and the main San Juan hill lay 
the lagoon, and through it the Rough Riders 
dashed. Colonel Roosevelt splashing and cheer- 
ing at the head of his men. 

This is what our men had been doing. Mean- 
while, as the charge was made across the open 
and up the hill, the Spaniards turned their vol- 



178 The Fall of Santiago. 

leys on the advancing troops. It was a wither- 
ing fire before which the men reeled and dropped 
in their tracks. As though by a common 
impulse, our men refrained from firing until 
they were close upon the trenches, and indeed 
until they could see the men individualb' in the 
rifle-pits. Blue-shirted men lay in hundreds 
over the thick grass, in the shallow waters of the 
pool, and on the slopes of the hill — slopes so 
steep that in many cases the men had to pull 
themselves up by rocks and bushes. At last they 
could see the enemy, see the whites of their eyes, 
and then steadying themselves, the whole army 
pumped American bullets into the Spanish line. 
The first line of trenches was a shambles, and 
throwing out the dead Spaniards, oiar men dropped 
into the horrible slime and directed their fire on 
the enemy, now running pellmell to the second 
line of defense. 

But, though the first line was gained, and the 
second was commanded by our position in the 
first line of trenches, the Spaniards as yet showed 
no disposition to acknowledge the day as lost. 
A hurried council of war was called in a break 
beneath the brow of the hill, and it was decided 
to rush and carry the other trenches and block- 
houses. After the work of the morning this was 
comparatively easy, that is, it was a plain case of 




From photograph by J. C. Hemment. 

The Seventy-first N. V. Volunteers as they were turned into the by-path off the main road 
it was while the Seventy-first were marching up the by-path that they 




Copyright, 1898, by W. B. Hearst. 
tn Juan. The two regular regiments of" the Brigade were up the road to the right, and 
met by what the Division Commander styled "a withering hre.'' 



The Fall of Santiago. 179 

fight. The charge was led by Eoosevelt at the 
head of the Rough Eiders and the Twenty -fourth 
Colored, and tired as the men were, they formed 
behind the hacienda and swept on irresistiblj'. 
This was fighting work they could do and feel 
moderately at home in. It was not the lurking 
hidden death which they had been facing from 
eight until noon. There were the trenches and 
the blockhouses on the rolling lands before them. 
By rush and volley they went and by volleys 
from the trenches they were met. It was awful 
work, but there was the fever of fight in the 
men, and by 3 :50 p. m. the last intrenchment 
was carried and the Spaniards had retired to the 
outworks of Santiago. 

The men who carried the trenches remarked 
on the great number of Spanish dead, and it 
was the general opinion that out of those 
whose volleys made such frightful holes in the 
advancing Americans, from seventy to eighty -five 
per cent, went down in that terrible hail of 
bullets sent in by our men when they had a fair 
chance to show their deadly accuracy of aim. The 
chief loss was the disabling of General Linares, 
who was shot by Sergeant McKinnery, of Com- 
pany D, Ninth Infantry, at a thousand yards. 
Linares immediately relinquished the command 
to General Toral, nor did he again assume it 
pending the campaign. 



180 



The Fall of Santiairo. 



It was a glorious victoiT, but clearly bought. 
Every regiment had lost and lost heavily. 
Twelve officers and seventj'-seven men killed, 
and thirt3'-two officers and four hundred and 
sixty-three men wounded made up the casualties 
to the First Division, the official report in detail 
being as follows : 

REPORT OF KILLED, WOUNDED AND MISSING, FIRST DIVI- 
SION, FIFTH ARMY CORPS, JULY 1, 1898. 



Organization. 



First Brigade: 

Sixteenth Infantry 

Sixth lufantrv 

Seventy-first N. Y. Vol. Infantry. 



Totals. 



Second Brigade: 

Tenth Infantry 

Twenty-first Infantry 

Second Infantry 



Totals. 



Third Brigade: 

Brigade Commander 

Ninth Infant'-y 

Thirteenth Infantry 

Twenty-fourth Infantry. . 



Totals.- 



Killed. 



Grand totals 13 



38 



10 



Wounded. 



177 
403 



The Fall of Santiago. 181 

It was at 4 :-15 p. m. that the firing died away 
■ — a firing which had been terrific, and so the 
foreign expert observers said, unexampled in its 
fierceness and intensity' — and (luiet fell on the 
valley, a quiet so sudden and startling that it 
seemed as though the machinery of the universe 
had stopped running. It was a case of actual 
exhaustion on both sides, and though it was 
known afterward that had the Americans pursued 
their advantage they could have followed the 
Spaniards clear into Santiago and have taken it 
almost without a struggle, we could not have 
done so even if it had re<iuired no more exertion 
than driving into the city a flock of sheep. 
The men dropped where they stood, and all they 
knew or cared for was that they had won the bat- 
tle of San Juan, and that the impregnable Gibral- 
tar of the Santiago highroad was theirs. 

Though the San Juan hill was taken Santiago 
was by no means ours. After trench-digging 
and the early morning visit of the commissariat 
it was hoped that a few hours' sleep might be 
granted our men, but such was not the Spanish 
idea. At five o'clock on Saturday morning the 
enemy made a desperate effort to recover its lost 
position. Again and again the hill was assaulted 
and again and again the Spanish soldiers were 
driven back — driven back too, with awful losses 



182 The Fall of Santiago. 

for now the conditions were reversed. Our 

men were intrenched and the Spaniards were at- 
tacking an intrenched position. The dynamite 
gun of the Rough Riders did telling work 
throughout the day, throwing shells into Santiago 
itself, and a battery of Hotchkiss guns was set 
up near the hacienda and cut swathes out of the 
enemy's ranks. 

All day long the assaults of varying determina- 
tion were made and night, that is, the night of 
Saturday, July 2, brought a general sortie. It was 
at 9 :30 that the firing of the pickets brought the 
wearied men once more to their feet. The Span- 
iards swarmed through the outer lines and pushed 
their way desperately on until in many cases they 
reached within a hundred yards of our lines. 
But in the trenches now stood men whose fire 
was cool and deadly, the sortie was completely 
repulsed and the Spaniard fell back to his third 
line which ph^ced him close under the walls of 
Santiago. Next morning, however, the Spaniards 
were again at it, but in a desultory long-distance 
firing which lasted until noon, when, to the sur- 
prise of those who did not know of the curious 
things that were happening at headquarters, a 
flag of truce was displayed and the order to cease 
firing ran along the lines. 

Owing to the reversal of positions just spoken 



The Fall of Santiairo. 



183 



of, our losses at San Juau in the second and 
third day 's iightiug were trifling compared to 
what they had been on the first. Nine men 
killed, four officers and ninety men wounded, 
nnule up the casualties of July 2; while in the 
third day's fighting only one man was killed and 
eight were wounded. 

In the three days' fighting the losses were as 
follows : 





At San Juan. 


At El Caney. 


Total. 




OflBcers. 


Men. 


Officers. 


Men. 


Officers. 


Men. 


Killed 


12 
36 


87 
561 
62 


11 
44 


121 

642 

19 


23 

80 


208 




1,203 
81 
















48 


710 


55 


782 


103 


1,492 



While it was and has been difficult to secure 
anything like a definite statement of the Spanish 
casualties, the following figures are substantially 
correct. At El Caney the killed, wounded and 
prisoners were found in round numbers to have 
been two thousand. At San Juan they reached 
three thousand, a total of killed, wounded and 
prisoners of five thousand. 

It was said just now that the display of the 
white flag was a surprise to those who saw it and 



18i The Fall of Santiago. 

who were not acquaiuted with the strange things 
that had happened at headquarters. This is the 
record: General Shafter, who, during the triple 
fight of July 1, had been lying sick at Sevilla, 
was in a much worse physical condition on July 
2, while to his bodily ailments was added much 
mental perturbation. From the reports brought 
him from the front he learned of El Caney's 
stubborn resistance, of the slaughter at San Juan, 
of the Spaniard's persistent fighting at this latter 
place and of the small things done at Aguadores 
by Brigadier-General Duffield. With the Thirt^-- 
third Michigan Volunteers, a battalion of the 
Thirty-fourth Michigan and about two thousand 
Cubans this officer, it will be remembered, was 
to advance on the little fortified toAvn at the 
mouth of the San Juan Kiver. Aguadores, Vv'ith 
its four thousand Spanish troops, was to be 
shelled by the New York and Suwanee while 
Duffield engaged them in a shore attack or cut 
off their escape to Santiago. But when Duffield 
neared Aguadores he found that the Spaniards 
had destroyed the railroad trestle across the San 
Juan, the Michigan men being obliged to halt on 
this side of a ravine, and that the bombardment by 
the flagship and her consort had done no material 
damage to the fort. When Duffield 's men ap- 
peared, the fort opened fire and with its first 



The Fall of Santiago. 185 

three shells killed twenty-tbree Cubans and two 
men of the Thirty-third. Duffield replied with 
a few volleys, but seeing the hopelessness of his 
position retired along tbe Siboney road. 

Learning of these things Shafter, on Saturday, 
called a council of war, during which the proposi- 
tion was advanced whether it would not be better 
to retire the American army to the high lands 
above Siboney pending the arrival and emplace- 
ment of heavy siege guns. Generals Kent and 
Sumner, who had arrived from San Juan, favored 
a withdrawal, but General Wheeler said bluntly 
that he proposed to stay where he was and in this 
stand he was backed by Generals Lawton and 
Bates, who came in from El Caney. Shafter's 
depression was so great, however, that he did 
not abandon his idea of retiring but determined, 
with a full appreciation of the gravity of such a 
movement, that the American lines should mean- 
while be thrown as far north as possible. And, 
with a policy of contingencies that was most re- 
markable and that produced still more remark- 
able results, he decided to demand the surrender 
of Santiago. In this remarkable determination 
General Shafter anticipated that, under cover of 
the negotiations that would certainly follow such 
a demand, he might be able to retire with safety 
and dignity and it may be, although it is not on 



186 The Fall of Santiago. 

record, that the wild hope may have been enter- 
tained that the commander of the Santiago forces 
would be surprised by such a demand into actual 
surrender. It is on record, however, that the 
government at Washington received on Sunday, 
July 3, two dispatches from Shafter which by 
turns so quickly depressed and elated it and 
which for a time seemed so inexplicable in their 
contradiction that they still occupy a prominent 
place in the documentary wonders of the cam- 
paign. The first dispatch was as follows : 

"Playa del Este, July 3. To Secretary of 
"War, Washington. Camp near Sevilla, Cuba, 
July 3. We have the town well invested on the 
north and east, but with a very thin line. Upon 
approaching it we find it of such a character and 
the defenses so strong it will be impossible to 
carry it by storm with my present force. 

"bur losses up to date will aggregate a thou- 
sand, but the list has not yet been made. There 
is but little sickness outside of exhaustion from 
intense heat and exertion of the battle of the day 
before yesterday, and the almost constant fire 
which is kept up on the trenches. 

"Shafter, Major-General." 

The effect of this dispatch upon the govern- 
ment was as depressing as was its tone. A gen- 
eral council of war was called for and held at noon 
in the office of the Secretary of War, at which it 



The Fall of Santiago. 187 

was decided to rush all possible reinforcements 
to SLafter, to send him a message of gratitude 
and thanks; %vhilo the conclusion was reached 
that the results before Santiago were those of a 
drawn battle and the expectation was entertained 
that the next news from Sbafter would bo that 
he had abandoned El Canej' and the San Juan 
plateau and was preparing to move his troops to 
the Siboney highlands for rest and preparation. 
Alger sent a dispatch of comfort to the effect 
that the President directed him to forward "the 
gratitude and thanks of the nation for the bril- 
liant and effective work" of the Santiago army 
on July 1. General Miles sent his congratula- 
tions and the notice that ho expected to be with 
him (Shafter) "within one week with strong 
reinforcements. " 

Following close on the receipt of Shafter's pes- 
simistic report and the dispatch of the govern- 
ment's message of comfort came, like a sudden 
sun ray through a rift in a dark cloud, this 
remarkable dispatch : 

"Playa del Este, July 3. To Secretary of War, 
Washington. Camp near Sevilla, Cuba, July 3. 
I sent a demand for the immediate surrender of 
Santiago, threatening to bombard the city. I 
believe the place will be surrendered. The fol- 
lowing is my demand for the surrender of San- 
tiago: 



188 The Fall of Santiago. 

" 'Commanding General Spanish forces, San- 
tiago de Cuba, July 3, 

" 'I shall be obliged, unless you surrender, to 
shell Santiago de Cuba. Please inform the citi- 
zens of foreign countries and all women and 
children that they should leave the city before 
ten o'clock to-morrow morning. ' 

"Very respectfully, Shafter, 

"Major-General Commanding," 

But Washington had not yet don3 with the 
surprises to which Shafter was to treat it on the 
momentous Sunday, July 3. Prior to the report 
from the General of his demand for the surrender 
of Santiago and his announcement that he be- 
lieved that the command would be complied with, 
the government had received an intimation from 
Colonel Allen, in command of the cable station 
at Play a del Este, that the Spanish fleet "had 
been destroyed and was burning on the beach." 
What "beach" or how "destroyed" this first 
and meager information of a great event did not 
say. Then came this dispatch from Shafter: 

"Headquarters Fifth Army Corps, 

"Cttba, July 3. 
"The Spanish fleet left the harbor this morn- 
ing and is reported practically destroyed. I de- 
manded the surrender of the city at ten o'clock 
to-day. At this hour, four-tbirty p.m. no reply 
has been received. Perfect quiet along the Hue. 



The Fall of Santiago. 189 

The situation has hern precarious on account of 
the difficulties of sujiplyins the command with 
food and the tremendous fighting? caiiabilities 
shown by the enemy, -who has almost an impreg- 
nable position. 

"Shatter, Commanding." 

The American Army was ready to fall back; 
the demand for Santiago's surrender had been 
made and would be complied with; the Spanish 
fleet had been destroyed; and the demand for 
the city's surrender was still being considered — ■ 
it was a combination of contradictory and sensa- 
tional news which left the Government still guess- 
ing and which set the public agape. 

From this confusion, and the presentation of 
its existence is necessary in a story which aims 
at accurately presenting the condition of things 
both at home and abroad, it is pleasant to turn 
to the facts of events. 



190 • The Fall of Santiago. 



CHAPTER IX. 

HOW SCHLEY DESTROYED CERVEBA's FLEET. 

Except in a casual way it lias not been found 
necessary, in the progress of this history, to 
refer to Cervera's fleet from the moment of its 
discovery inside Santiago Harbor by Schley. 
The fleet was there, ahut up in the land-locked 
harbor; the subject of forcing the passage, brav- 
ing the mines and risking the fires of the bat- 
teries and engaging the fleet had, as has been 
told, formed the subject of conversation and 
plan between Admiral Sampson and his comman- 
ders; and the Merrimac, as has also been told, 
v/as sunk partly athwart the channel by Hobson 
— but outside of these facts and references Cer- 
vera's fleet has been a passive factor in this 
story. 

It will be remembered that when the great 
running Admiral got behind the shelter of 
El Morro and La Socapa his seclusion was en- 
titled by the Spanish authorities "a great tact- 
ical victory," while our authorities were equally 



The Fall of Santiago. 191 

precise in esteemiug the process of bottling it up 
as the settlement of an undefined danger. But 
housed as it was in Santiago Harbor and par- 
tially locked though the door might be.Cerverva's 
fleet was still in existence and sometime or other 
would have to bo met and accounted for. As to 
how that meeting would occur there were many 
surmises, but not even the deftest romancer in 
the fleet ever spun a yarn so full of bright and 
glowing threads as that in which Cervera was 
moored, wound up and ended. The spectacular 
element, of whose profusion in this campaign I 
have before remarked, was eminently, distin- 
guishingly present in the last act of Cervera's ap- 
pearance in the role of naval commander. 

Passive though the Spanish fleet may have 
seemed to be in its imprisonment, the time had 
been by no means one of inaction to the Spani- 
ards. To the contrary, it had been one in which 
movement and anxiety had had equal parts. 

The story of Cervera's imprisonment, and 
attempt to escape as told by the Spaniards them- 
selves is rather a pitiful one. Those who tell it 
are Captain Eulate of the Viscaya, Captain Con- 
treres of the Colon, Cariuz the impressed and 
official pilot of the Spanish fleet, and, lastly, that 
log of the Colon out of which we have already 
gathered the story of Cervera's flitting from port 



192 The Fall of Santiago. 



O" 



to port. It is a long story as well as a pitiful 
one, but some of it must be told here. 

The time of feasting and frolic which followed 
the entrance of Cervera's fleet into Santiago Har- 
bor on May 19th lasted until the appearance on 
the outside of Schley's grim-looking warships. 
Then the rollicking was cut short, shore-leave cut 
off and feverish activity took their place. Just 
as our naval commanders were busy in devising 
plans to keep Cervera from coming out, so Cervera 
was hard at work devising plans to keep Schley 
and Sampson from coming in. Four six-inch 
guns were taken out of the Reina Mercedes, two 
of them placed in La Socapa battery so as to 
enfilade the neck of the harbor and two mounted 
in a shore battery opposite Cay Smith ; the elec- 
tric mines in the channels were reinforced with a 
number of contact mines; a great boom of logs 
and swinging rope nooses was laid clear across 
the bay between the entrance and the fleet, and 
four rapid-fire six-pounders were removed from 
the flagship and placed in shore earthworks op- 
posite the narrowest part of the entrance. 
When all of these works of protection had been 
done, and their accomplishment occupied until 
May 31, both Cervera and Linares held that San- 
tiago was impregnable to a sea attack and indeed 
it seemed a peculiar fancy of the Spanish com- 



The Fall of Santiago. 193 

mandera that they wore always contriving and 
constructing "impregnable" positions, with the 
equally nugatory result that the "impregnable 
positions" were always either carried by the 
enemy or abandoned by themselves. 

Hobson learned something of the nature of 
Santiago's defenses and much more was learned 
afterwards by Schley when he made the tour of 
the batteries after the surrender of the city, but 
it is evident that Hobson did not know all, and 
that Schley was rather inclined to judge super- 
ficially. Hobson saw nothing but what he was 
allowed to see, and Schley only saw what the 
Spaniards had left in the way of visible defenses. 
It is from the Spanish revelations of what had 
been done to guard Cervera's fleet against attack 
that we gain an exact idea of what our fleet would 
have had to encounter had it pressed into the 
harbor to atack the Spaniard. 

When the American army landed at Daiquiri 
and Siboney, two gun crews were sent from each 
Spanish ship with three-pounder landing guns 
and a battery of automatic guns to assist the Span- 
ish forces. Guns and men took an active part in 
the battles of El Caney and San Juan, two of the 
officers and many of the men being killed there. 
When both of these strongholds were taken the 
desperate nature of the situation appealed so 



194 The Fall of Santiago. 

strongly to both Cervera and Linares that the 
latter sent an almost despairing message to 
Blanco who replied, as Governor General of Cuba, 
by ordering Cervera to make a run for it. On the 
receipt of these instructions Cervera, on the 
afternoon of July 2, signalled his captains to a 
conference at which it was agreed by all the com- 
manders, except those of the torpedo-boat des- 
troyers, that it was best to make the attempt to 
escape at night. The American troops were press- 
ing forward, taking line after line of intrench- 
ments; Shafter's indecision and fears were not 
known of, and the American fleet seemed to be 
closing in on the harbor, so it was decided to go 
out that very night at eleven o'clock. As soon as 
darkness set in the preparatory work for the dash 
into the open sea was begun. The contact mines, 
lying to the west of the Merrimac, were removed, 
the big boom was drawn aside and the ships were 
massed near the entrance. But night brought no 
relaxation of vigilance on the part of the Amer- 
ican blockaders. To the contrary, it was seen 
that the blockading fleet was drawn up in un- 
usually close lines, the great white cones of the 
flash-lights played uninterruptedly on the en- 
trance; while up on the hills beacon fires were 
burning. To Cervera and his officers it appeared 
impossible to get away from this wary, watchful 



The Fall of Santiago. 196 

foe and when he ran up the querulous signal, 
"Do you think we had better wait until day- 
light," all the captains answered "Yes." 

The Spanish ships were then withdrawn up the 
harbor, the boom thrown back, the contact mines 
replaced and daylight waited for. But when day- 
light came and the ships on'ce more steamed 
down to the entrance, there lay the blockading 
fleet close and wary as ever. Fires were all go- 
ing in the Spaniards' boiler rooms, and at nine 
o'clock the captains and admirals met for a final 
conference. It was decided that no more delay 
was possible, and that the only thing left was to 
get up all steam possible and, as soon as a four- 
teen knot power was made, to start. The order of 
the ships' exits were set in tbis wise : First the In- 
fanta Maria Teresa, with Cervera on board ; then 
the Viscaya, then the Almirante Oquendo, then 
the Cristobal Colon, each with a cable's length 
headway. It was planned that the three first 
named were to engage the enemy running and 
that the Colon, as the fleetest of the cruisers and 
under cover of this engagement, was to put on full 
speed to the west and get away to Cienfuegos. 
Most of the baggage and valuables of the officers 
was put on board the Colon, for while the up- 
shot of the fight between the Teresa, Viscaj'a and 
Oquendo and our ships was in doubt, none was 



196 The Fall of Santiago. 

entertained as to the ability of the Colon to out- 
strip her pursuers. The gunboat destroyers were 
to follow the Colon and aid in covering the escape 
of that ship. 

The swift-running, heavy-batteried Brooklyn 
was the most dreaded of the American ships and 
all the Spanish captains Avere instructed to make 
a joint attempt to sink her, every big gun being 
trained forward of the beam so that on emerging 
from the entrance all would be aimed at her. 
While these last instructions were being given, 
the signalman at El Morro announced that the 
American flagship had just left for the East and 
that the Newark and Massachusetts were also well 
down the coast. It seemed to the Spaniards as 
though Providence was on their side at last, the 
captains were hurried to their ships and the dash 
for liberty was begun. 

The lookout on El Morro had correctly reported. 
The joint attack on Santiago by the land and sea 
forces, as an emphatic aid to hasten a capitula- 
tion, was to be arranged, and Sampson steamed 
3 down early on this Sunday morning to Siboney 
for the purpose of consulting with Shafter. As 
■ the New York turned eastward she flew the signal 
"Disregard commander-in-chief's movements." 
Her departure left Schley in virtual command of 
the blockading fleet and so it happened that. 



i 



The Fall of Santiago. 197 

because of this Sunday morning visit, it was left 
for Schley to carry out those laconic instructions 
which he had received from Washington when 
he reported his discovery of Cervera's fleet. He 
had been told to "capture or destroy" the Span- 
ish ships and ho did so. Admiral Sampson's 
departure for the confabulation at Siboney did 
not, it is true, shift the command; he was still 
commander-in-chief of the fleet, and officially was 
at the head of the American war vessels when 
they shot and smothered Cervera's lean cruisers 
out of existence. But, while officially present, 
he was personally absent and to the plain people, 
who so stubbornly stick to plain facts and pocket 
official fictions, it was Schley, Schley and his 
fighting fellow-commanders to whom is due the 
glory of the battle of July 3d. 

No one doubts the ability and foresight of Eear 
Admiral Sampson. After the landing of the army 
of invasion Sampson instructed his captains to 
"maintain and display the utmost vigilance in 
guarding the harbor entrance." This was spe- 
cifically enjoined on them and they were as spe- 
cifically told that "if the Spanish admiral ever 
intends to try to escape he will make that effort 
now." That possibility was emphatically laid 
down and the commanders understood and ap- 
preciated the wisdom and foresight of their chief. 



198 The Fall of Santiago. 

But the night was always regarded as the time 
when Cervera would, in all probability, make his 
running. The cover of darkness and the con- 
fusion of a night battle were always considered 
the elements which Cervera would choose as aids 
to his escape and, while it cannot be said that 
nobody dreamed Cervera would bolt for it in full 
daylight, certainly such a possibility could not 
have been seriously considered by Sampson or he 
would not have left the fleet on this Sunday 
morning. As Cervera had found on the preced- 
ing night, the American lines were closely drawn 
about the entrance and the searchlights lit up 
every inch between the heights of El Morro and 
La Socapa. But when morning dawned the lines 
of the blockading squadron were broken. Of 
the flagship's whereabouts we know. The battle- 
ship Massachusetts early in the morning had 
gone to Guantanamo ; the Marblehead was also at 
that base of supplies; the New Orleans had been 
sent to Key West and of the numerous auxiliary 
fleet two only , the converted yacht Gloucester 
and the converted tugboat Vixen, were left on 
blockade — the others being widely scattered 
along the coast from Guantanamo to Acerradores. 
We know what the Spaniards had been doing, 
what preparations they had made and how they 
were lined up behind the shelter of the entrance 



The Fall of Santiago, 199 

cliffs "waiting for the signal to run; let us now see 
Low lay that paet of the American squadron 
which remained on blockade duty. 

The morning was clear and a painter would 
have said that tbe sea was turquoise and that the 
sky from zenith to horizon was shaded from sap- 
phire to topaz. The American shijjs lay in a 
long semicircle, with its distance from the shore 
ranging from about two miles at the horns of tbe 
crescent to about five miles in the fullness of the 
bow. The little Vixen lay at the western horn 
of tbo crescent, she being close under the hills 
at Cabanas; a mile to the eastward and outward 
lay the Brooklyn flying Commodore Schley's flag ; 
next, and at e(iual distances, came the Texas, 
Iowa, Oregon and Indiana, tbe little Gloucester 
lying in a corresponding position to the Vixen at 
the western horn of tbo crescent. In this distri- 
bution tbe Iowa was at a point about opposite the 
Santiago Harbor entrance and therefore the fur- 
thest from the shore. All the ships were headed 
in; lazily tossing in the long swell, with banked 
fires and motionless engines. The crews had 
been called to quarters and were grouped about, 
clad in tbeir speckless white dress mustering 
suits and the captain and executive officer of each 
ship were below inspecting. Sunday service 
would soon be called and altogether it was a scene 



200 The Fall of Santiago. 

of Sabbatb peace at sea. It is well to fill the 
mind with this idea of the rest and quiet of the 
American ships on the one side and the alert 
stillness of the Spanish fleet on the other, in order 
to appreciate the extraordinary and startling 
change that took place in a twinkling. It was a 
transformation scene from the realms of Peace on 
the Deep to the horror and turmoil of the Battle- 
field of the Demons of Discord, effected with a 
suddenness, unique perhaps in the annals of war- 
fare, and accompanied by such a swift and terrific 
work of destruction as was certainly undreamed 
of by the students of the possibilities of modern 
warships ia action. 

Complete as was the surprise caused by the 
sudden appearance of Cervera's ships it speaks 
volumes for the discipline of our men, under 
what may be called relaxed conditions, that it 
has been found almost impossible to decide 
who really did first see the outcoming Span- 
iards. The lookouts on the Texas, Iowa and 
Oregon all claim the distinction of being the 
first to signal the discovery of Cervera's 
' attempt to escape, while, were this a boy's history 
of the war, much pleasant importance might be 
given to the claim of Joe Gaskin, a Newark lad 
on board the Iowa, of whom it is said that he had 
been watching all the morning for Cervera's ships 



r 



The Fall of Santiago. 201 

"because he haJ passed a good deal of the night 
thinking of them." The facts are that all three 
vessels signaled so simultaneously that the dis- 
coveries came as one ; Joe Gaskin got his ten dol- 
lars as a special reward for vigilance, and it was 
the Oregon wliich put the discovery into effect. 
Without waiting to bend on and run up her sig- 
nals the Oregon fired a six-pounder as an alarm 
and before its echoes had died away the string of 
parti-colored Hags for signal 250, "The enemy is 
trying to escape, " "was flying from the masts of 
the Brooklyn, Texas, Iowa and Oregon. Smoke 
in the harbor had been seen many times and when 
it was noticed early this morning not much impor- 
tance was attached to it. Toward 9 o'clock the 
wreaths of smoke which rose above the entrance 
hills grew more pronounced and still they 
were thought only to indicate activity among the 
tugs of the bay ; but when at 9 :35 a moving prow 
showed from behind Cay Smith and the next in- 
stant a black-hulled cruiser came into view the 
rousing, heart-prodding truth burst upon the 
fleet, and then it was that the signals went up 
and the curtain rose on the transformation 
scene. 

Orders were issued of course, but they were 
not needed, for even while the ship-boys went 
flying through the gangways yelling that 



202 The Fall of Santiago. 

the Spaniards -were coming out, the men had 
doffed their spick-and-span suits and stood 
stripped at their posts; drums were beating; 
Lattle-hatches and battle-ports were being put 
on; guns were loaded and trained and, down- 
stairs, naked men were piling up the furnaces, 
hacking open the banked fires and coupling the 
boilers. As by a common impulse all this was 
done and as by a common impulse all the warships 
headed for the entrance. 

It was the Maria Teresa, with Admiral Cervera 
on board, but not flying the admiral's pennant, 
which came first into view and it was the Maria 
Teresa that fired the first shot. As the cruiser 
cleared Socapa Point her forward turret belched 
black smoke and an eleven-inch shell came hurt- 
ling through the air and exploded as it touched 
the water between the Texas and Iowa. With 
its explosion came the American answer, an 
answer from all five warships and an answer that 
roared like the coming of a tornado and in whose 
midst, like that of a tornado, there was swift 
death and destruction. 

For a time it was scarcely possible to decide 
on precise and separate lines of action or to quite 
make out the separate points of attack. The 
Spaniards came out shooting and with the dis- 
charges of their great guns, added to the volume 




From photograph by J. C. Hcmmcnt. 

The " Maria Teresa" after her surrender and as she lay a hulk of twisted steel and usel 

the inland hills is pa: 




Copyright, 1898, by W. B. Hearst. 
close into the Santiago shore. The precipitous and impassable nature ot this shore and 
'I brought out in this view. 



The Fall of Santiago. 203 

of smoke from their funnels, the vessels were 
soon little more than moving smoke-clouds. They 
were rather as moving pillars of fire and smoke 
in each of which the faint outlines of a dark- 
colored, swift-moving warship could be seen, 
whilb between and across and around these 
smoke-clouds there rose and fell a moving 
line of fountains, where the great shells struck 
and threw up the sea. Then, to this bank of 
clouds and congregation of geysers, was added 
the on-coming wall of smoke with its spits 
of fire that marked the American fleet; and next 
the guns of the batteries added their smoke, until 
the whole sea and coast were covered with great 
rolling heaps and banks of cloud through which 
the position of the ships was marked by the flashes 
of the guns. 

But moving clouds, lightning clouds as were 
the ships; and full of murk and lurid light as 
was the whole scene, out of it was soon evolved a 
fight of definiteness as to plan and of individuality 
as to contestants. Before that first terrific and 
wholesale broadside of the American fleet Cer- 
vera's plans melted away. "With that frightful 
evidence coming from long range of what he 
would have to encounter at shorter range the 
Spanish fleet settled down to one object, that of 
making its escape. The Maria Teresa, the first to 



204 The Fall of Santiago. 

emerge, was also the first to set the new running. 
Scarcely had the cruiser cleared Soca])a Point 
than over went her helm and away she sped, due 
west, heading for that section of the blockading 
squadron where the line was formed by the 
Vixen and Brooklyn. The Vixen, it will be re- 
membered, lay close to shore and Cervera evi- 
dently thought, in this new and sudden plan, that 
he could slip by the Vixen without damage on 
account of her small size, and get away up the 
coast before the Brooklyn could close in and 
certainly before the great battleships could bring 
their massive forms into full action. As the long 
Castillian cruiser leaped forward the Vixen, with 
excellent discretion, scampered off to sea. The 
water was leaping high up the bows of the Brook- 
lyn as she closed in, her long-range guns turned 
straight on the fleeing Spaniard. As the two 
vessels neared it looked for one desperate moment 
as though the Teresa intended to ram the Brook- 
lyn, so wheeling with a rapidity that was of a part 
with the whole engagement the American flagship 
turned her bow westward and coupling on fresh 
boilers, ran parallel to the escaping cruiser, 
blazing away with all her starboard guns. But 
not alone from the Brooklyn did the Teresa re- 
ceive her wounds, for even as the great battleships 
smothered inwards and westward they fired at so 



The Fall of Santiago. 205 

long a range that the resulting hits may bo classed 
among the miracles of gunnery. The very first 
shot which the Brooklyn fired at the Teresa as 
the two came into parallel line cut the Spaniard's 
main -water-supply pipe, but from the Texas and 
Oregon's giant guns she received the first of her 
death blows. One shell from the Oregon passed 
through her port quarter and exploded in the 
engine room, another landed on her stern and set 
her afire, while several thirteen-inch shells swept 
through her, each one at once a battering ram 
and a hail of far-reaching death. Then, as the 
Brooklyn brought the Teresa within range of her 
secondarj' battery the smaller shells of the Amer- 
ican lodged and burst in her antagonist from 
stem to stern. 

"While the Teresa was thus receiving the brunt 
of the first fire, her lean, lank sisters had emerged 
from the entrance and were set with all their 
noses pointed west and racing for dear life, with 
the great American sea-hounds in hot pursuit. 
As each passed the fated Teresa she sent another 
shell or two into that doomed craft. There was 
no time to fight her, nor indeed was there any 
need to. The Teresa was out of the running. 
She had put her black muzzle out of Santiago 
Harbor at 9 :35. At 10 :10 she w^as a burning, 
riddled hulk, with her fire mains cut fore and aft 



206 The Fall of Santiago. 

and no way of putting out the blaze. Two of 
the thirteen-inch projectiles of the Texas had 
gone clear through her ; an eight-inch shell from 
the Brooklyn had entered just forward of the 
beam on the port side and exploding had cleaned 
out the compartment with its four deck crews. 
One six-inch shell had carried away the bridge; 
another from the Brooklyn's forward turret struck 
the Spaniard amidships, exploded, tore down the 
bulkheads, destroyed stanchions, iienetrated the 
deck, crippled two rapid-fire guns, killed fifteen 
or twenty men and carried panic everywhere. 

For a moment the Teresa halted and veered, 
like a stricken man groping in the oncoming 
dark. To the sailors of our fleet, as they swept 
by it looked as though she were about to turn 
and were trying to stagger back into the shelter 
of the harbor, but when she had half swung a 
great gush of flame shot upward from her quarter, 
and it was seen that her commander was about 
to run her ashore. This he did at 10:35, having 
found a little cove, really a break in the coast- 
line, which the Cubans call Nima-Nama. As she 
struck the beach her colors went down, and the 
flames leaped up with renewed activity from the 
shock of her keel on the beach. And so ended the 
Infanta Maria Teresa, first-class cruiser, late of 
the Spanish navy. 



The Fall of Santiago. 207 

Following the Teresa, and hugging the shore as 
that ship had done, came the Viscaya,and after her 
and parallel to her came on the Oregon and Texas, 
rapidly closing up the gap between them and the 
Brooklyn, while the Iowa turned in to look after 
the surrendered Teresa. The same tactics that 
had obtained in the battle with the Teresa were 
carried cut in that with the Viscaya, except that 
the Brooklyn was now so far ahead that she was 
able to turn slightly in shore in such a way as to 
cut off the Viscaya's escape. But the cruiser 
never reached the lino of the Brooklyn's offset. 
Schley, Clark and Philip thus kept up the race 
and the fire of the three ships was concentrated 
on this hapless hulk, while, as the Iowa turned 
in to look after the Teresa she let fly one spiteful 
shell at the Viscaya which struck the Spaniard's 
eleven-inch gun in the forward turret, cutting a 
furrow out of the side of the gun as though it had 
been done Avith a cold chisel. The shell exploded 
half way in the turret, making the vessel stagger 
and shake in every plate. Every gunner in the 
turret was killed and the place so choked with 
corpses that the new crew had to ship the dead 
through the ammunition hoist to the lower deck. 

The Yiscaj'a remained, however, the special prey 
of the Brooklyn and Oregon, the Texas having in 
her run paid most attention to the Oquendo. 



208 The Fall of Santiago. 

Exclusive of the innumerable one-pounder and 
rapid-fire hita which swept the Viscaya's deck 
she was struck fourteen times bj' large projectiles 
and eleven times by six-pounders. The eight- 
inch guns of the Brooklyn and Oregon tore her 
structure above the armor belt into shreds, while 
the six-pounders of the two ships actually drove 
every Spaniard from the deck. Every rapid-fire 
gun on the Viscaya was silenced because every 
gunner had been either killed or crippled at his 
post ; the military tops were filled with dead men; 
the surgeons had ceased to dress the wounded; 
the inside woodwork was ablaze and the hospital 
was a furnace. Men and oflficers acted like peo- 
ple bereft of their senses. The oflScers screamed 
their orders and the men rolled here and there 
like drunkards. Then, at 10 :55, when the whole 
gun-deck was in flames and the magazines were 
in danger she, with her flag still flying, was 
headed for the shore at Acerradores, sixteen 
miles west of El Morro. Just as she turned for 
the shore, and when about four hundred yards 
from the beach, the Texas, in flying past in pur- 
suit of the Colon, fired a shell from her after-tur- 
ret. It hit the Viscaya a little forward of amid- 
ships just above the armor-belt, crashed through 
her side, crossed the gun-deck, ricocheting from 
compartment to compartment until it reached the 




From photograph by J. C. Hcmment. 

Superstructure and main deck of the " Viscaya," showing the terrible' 




Copyright, 1898, by VV. B. Hearst. 
ruction caused by the exploding American shells and the succeeding fire. 



The Tall of Santiago. 209 

forward torpedo-tubes one of wliieh it exploded 
Torpedo aud shell alike exploded indeed and 
■while in its progress over the deck the shell 
killed eighty men, the double explosion blew out 
the starboard side of the cruiser and made her a 
complete wreck. And so ended the Viscaya. 

The end of the 0<iuendo differed but little in 
its elements of horror from that of the two cruis- 
ers whose destruction has been described. Some- 
thing appeared to bo the matter with the machin- 
ery or engines of this vessel, for though the 
draught was being forced to such an extent that 
her funnel-tops were freciuently crested with 
flames, she had fallen behind the Yiscaya. In con- 
sequence of her comparative slowness everyone 
of our warships punished her as she swept along 
in the great parallel fight. In the case of the 
Oquendo, too, the pursuing ships had no need 
of long-range gunnery, but forged in closely to 
her and overwhelmed her with the fire of their 
secondary batteries. Only four eight-inch shells 
struck her and but two six-inch shells. On the 
other hand she was struck no less than forty -six 
times by our six-pounders, all of which entered 
above her armor-belt and exploded within, while 
the one-pounders from every vessel in the fleet 
seemed for a time to have been concentrated on 
her, these small but most mischievous missiles 



210 The Fall of Santiago. 

having plowed through, across and along her as 
a battery of machine-guns might have torn a regi- 
ment to pieces. She furnished an object lesson 
of the wonderful rapidity and accuracy of the fire 
of our small guns that was in its way as interesting 
and instructive as was the Teresa in showing what 
the Texas and Oregon could do in the way of 
landing a giant shell from a moving fortress into 
a flying target with a few miles between them. 

Captain Eulate, who commanded the Oquendo, 
declared that it was the carnage caused by the 
secondary batteries of our ships, and mainly by 
the Brooklyn which led to his surrrender, the 
men being literally unable to work their guns. 
Eulate further reported that the long-range fight- 
ing, notwithstanding the heavier metal thrown, 
was as a child's love-pat compared with the 
thrashing received from the small guns. The 
rattle of the lighter shot on the ateel decks, the 
incessant din, the constant flashing of exploding 
shells and the never ceasing shriek of the projec- 
tiles made up such a concatenation of horror that 
it seemed impossible to think of or hear anything 
outside of this devil's tattoo. The killing inside 
the ship was something too horrible for descrip- 
tion. She caught on fire so many times and in 
so many places that the ironwork was scarcely 
bearable to the touch and the deck seemed red 



The Fall of Santiago. 211 

hot. Every beam was twisted and torn from its 
original position. It was absolutely beyond hu- 
man endurance to hold out further; she was a 
shambles above and below ; the track of the shells 
was marked by human remains. One eight-inch 
shell struck the forward turret at the gun open- 
ing; every man in the turret was killed and the 
officer in the firing-hood was blown to pieces. 
The engineer force was penned up because of 
the battle-gratings being jammed. So having 
reached a point opposite the beach where the 
Teresa was run, she was headed in about five hun- 
dred yards above her helpless consort, with 
flames rising fiercely from stem to stern. And 
BO, with explosions that still further wrecked her 
shattered sides and deck, theAlmirante Oquendo 
was finished. 

There remained then the torpedo-destroyers 
and the Cristobal Colon. The plans of Admiral 
Cervera were being wofully interfered with. For 
a time, and really in due sequence as the death 
of the Colon came later, the desperate running of 
that swift cruiser can be passed over while atten- 
tion is paid to the fate of the destroyers— those 
untried craft concerning whose possibilities so 
much had been written and feared. The last of 
the cruisers was two miles from the entrance 
when the Pluton came into view, closely followed 



212 The Fall of Santiago. 

by the Furor. Their low black forms seemed to 
waver for a moment and their bows were pointed 
eastward; then, following the course of the cruis- 
ers they, too, headed for the west. Blood-cur- 
dling tales had been told of what these wicked 
little craft would do; of their thirty-knot speed; 
of their magical ability to maneuver and of 
their power to launch a torpedo and get away 
unscathed with the swiftness of an enraged wasp. 
Instead of all this, the reality was two wavering 
little boats which could not even run away, but 
which slowly moved into the shadow of the shore 
as though seeking to avoid observation. On our 
side there was no apparent thought as to the fero- 
cious possibilities of the destroyers, for the Ore- 
gon scarcely deigned to pepper them as she 
dashed to the front; the Texas treated them to a 
secondary battery shower as she too moved west; 
the Iowa, running neck and neck with the Oregon, 
swerved a little to tear the stern of the Furor to 
pieces with one fierce shell and then passed on, 
contemptuously leaving the completer destruc- 
tion of the craft to the little Gloucester. 

The Gloucester had been the millionaire Mor- 
gan's yacht, known as Corsair No. 2, and even as 
a converted gunboat was as harmless a looking 
pirate as ever put the quietus to a couple of dis- 
tressed Spanish sea-bravos. The captain of the 



The Fall of Santiago. 213 

Gloucester was Lieutenant Harry P. WaiuAvright, 
who had been the last luan to leave the hulk of 
the Maine as she settled into the silt of Havana 
Harbor. Dashing right inside of the line of our 
cruisers until she was close under the guns of El 
Morro, and in the full fire of those batteries, of the 
stern-chasers of the fleeing cruisers and of the 
possibilities of the terrible things the destroyers 
could do, the little yacht darted in to tackle them 
at close quarters. Carrying four six-pounder 
rapid-fire guns, four three-pounder rapid-fire 
guns and two small Colt automatics and with 
a complement of ninety-three ofiicers and men 
the little unarmored 800-ton yacht started in to 
finish up the two Spanish fighting craft, each as 
long as she, each built to destroy, each carrying 
two fourteen-pound, two six-pound and four one- 
pound rapid-fire guns, and two fourteen-inch 
torpedo tubes, with a total complement of one 
hundred and thirty-four men. The gun work on 
the Gloucester was record-making; empty shells 
rolled about the deck, breech-locks grew so hot 
that they refused to work, the men were stripped 
naked and though the Spaniards shot valiantly 
in their attempt to sink their tiny antagonist, 
not a shot struck her. Pushing forward until 
within five hundred yards of the destroyers, fir- 
ing now at one now at the other the Gloucester 



214 The Fall of Santiago. 

pressed on. Suddenly there was a flash, not that 
of a gun, on board the Pluton and she began to 
settle. At the sight of this catastrophe the Fu- 
ror circled back to El Morro as though running 
away from her wounded sister, and then circled 
back as though ashamed of her conduct and as 
though she were returning to assist in the Pluton 's 
dying struggles. But again she turned, and it was 
then seen that she was drifting and simply mov- 
ing in a circle because of a jammed helm. For 
all this the Gloucester kept up her withering fire 
until the Furor went down by the head and sank 
in deep water just west of Cabanas, while the Plu- 
ton managed to get close enough to run ashore. 
"Wainwright had remembered the Maine. 

Among those saved was Lieutenant Boado- 
Suances of the Pluton and some days after, when 
he was able to think clearly, for the horror of his 
experience almost made him mad, he told his 
story. Of shattered steam-pipes and escaping 
steam scalding to death the engineers and 
stokers as they stood; of men cut in twain by 
fragments of giant shells; of the boats thrown 
on their beam ends from the force of the shells* 
impact and torn to pieces from the explosions; 
of other shells whose path could be marked by 
splashes in the sea as they came bounding toward 
them, sure as death and straight as an arrow, at 



The Fall of Santiago. 215 

whose sight men screamed shrilly in their 
fear. 

There remained then the Colon. For a time it 
looked as though the plan for her escape by runn- 
ing inside the line of the other cruisers might be 
carried to a successful conclusion. In the din 
and smother and roar of the other engagements 
this fleet ship coursed westward, gaunt-looking 
and rapid as a hound. But there were sharp 
eyes and nimble minds on board the American 
ships. The Spaniard had reeled off many a good 
knot in her flight and of her pursuers all but 
two were left moderately well behind— the Brook- 
lyn and the Oregon, a cruiser and a battleship. 
In their running fight the two Americans pressed 
on after the Spaniard in a line that would have 
brought them broadside along her— the Spaniard 
following the trend of the coast. But this coast 
dipped into bay which ended in Cape Cruz to 
the westward. Schley saw the cape and imme- 
diately turned out and headed for it, and when 
the Spaniard saw this move he knew that his 
case was hopeless. As the Brooklyn swung out 
the Oregon put on a burst of speed and followed 
the Colon, and it was at this time that the battle- 
ship made for herself a record among the fight- 
ing machines of the world, and set the fleet 
a-roaring. 



216 The Fall of Santiago. 

Put together like a watch they huew her to be; 
steady as an East ludiaman she had proved her- 
self to be in her ever-memorable voyage up and 
down the oceans of the New World ; big as a city 
block of buildings they could see her to be, but 
when this monstrous tioating fortress went leap- 
ing over and through the waves like a clipper- 
ship and that without any apparent effort, her 
smoke-stacks being crested only with the faintest 
Laze, men threw up their hands in amazement. 

From iighting mast to fighting mast the Oregon 
and the Brooklyn signaled the range to and fro 
and both began firing. It was then one o'clock p.m. 
and the distance between battleship and cruiser 
was six thousand yards. As the Oregon dashed 
along in the general pursuit of and fight with the 
other Spaniards she looked indeed a floating for- 
tress, firing fore, aft and abeam at once, but now 
she settled down into a steady target-practice. 
Now, too, the Colon having seen the error of her 
way was making every effort to slip past Cape 
Cruz, beyond which lay safety. Every pound of 
steam was crowded on and she was going a nine- 
teen-kuot gait. But tear through the water as 
she might, the long slim Brooklyn was swiftly 
and surely getting between her and the headland. 
Captain Clark's great shells were beginning to 
fall around her, while behind the Oregon the 



The Fall of Santiago. 217 

Texas could be seen poundiuj^ along in her wake 
under a forced draught. The Oregon's thirteen- 
inch shells fell nearer and nearer to the Colon 
and the S{)aniard was headed for the shore and 
her flag hauled down. 

Hers was the most inglorious end of all the 
Spanish fleet. She was in good fighting comrais- 
sion when run ashore. Having kept behind the 
other ships for protection, the Colon was hit with 
large projectiles about six times, these having 
been made hy the Brooklyn and Oregon. One 
eight-inch shell went clean through her withoiit 
exploding, one five-inch hit her just above the 
armor-belt and one six-inch struck her on the 
bow, but no blow was fatal or even serious. 

When the Colon turned in and ran her nose 
on the coral keys about the mouth of the Eio 
Tarquino, forty-eight miles west of Santiago, she 
was a surrendered ship in good condition. When 
the Americans reached her she was a wreck and 
bad been wantonly made so. The breech-locks 
of the guns had been torn out and thrown over- 
board. Every inlet for water had been opened 
and the wrecking-gang of the Merrimac had not 
worked more religiously and efficiently to sink 
that collier than did the officers and men of the 
Colon to wreck and scuttle her after surrender. 
Only one life had been lost and she had less than 
twenty men wounded. 



218 The Fall of Santiago. 

The New York's share in the fight was that of 
an observer. It will be remembered that she had 
gone down to Sibouey for a Sunday morning call 
on Shaf ter. At half-past nine the sound of heavy 
guns reached the flagship and turning westward 
the bridge-officer saw and reported "Firing from 
the eastern and western batteries and the ships 
returning it." A moment's confusion, a skurry- 
ing of orderlies and the New York's bow was 
brought around for Santiago. Eight knots was 
all she could make at first, only two boilers being 
in use, but new fires were started, the 
forward engines coupled and as the deck was 
cleared for action she soon gathered speed. A a 
she swept by theKesolute that gunboat was sent 
back to Sibouey to cable to Playa del Este to order 
up the Massachusetts and all other vessels there- 
abouts, and the torpedo boat Ericsson was gath- 
ered up in the westward run. As she came oppo- 
site El Morro the flagship fired her forward four- 
inch guns, four shots in all and these were her only 
shots for the day. They were aimed at the Terror 
and one was thought to have struck the upper 
works of that destroyer. The others went wide. 
As the flagship swept on, the destroyers were seen 
to be total wrecks, and Wainwright was busy 
succoring his enemies. 

Five miles beyond the harbor entrance, 



The Fall of Santiago. 219 

Sampson saw the Spanish flagship Infanta 
Maria Teresa beached and flying a white flag; 
less than a mile beyond at Juan Gonzales, Samp- 
son saw the Almiraute Oqueudo beached and 
ablaze ; opposite Acerradores, Sampson passed the 
Viscaya ashore and blazing like the Oquendo. 
What Sampson had so far seen of the Spanish 
fleet was a succession of battered and blazing 
bulks. There remained only the Colon, and the 
flagship pressed on to be at least in at the death 
of that cruiser, but when the flagship reached 
the Eio Tarquino the Colon had surrendered. 
Sampson there received Schley's report of his 
glorious victorj', took charge of the transfer 
of prisoners and placed Lieutenant-Commander 
James G. Cogswell, executive officer of the 
Oregon, in command of the Colon. 

It was thought that the Colon might be saved 
and the Vixen was set to tow her inshore, but 
the tug could not move the Spaniard's huge bulk. 
Next the flagship muzzled her sharp prow with a 
rope fender and, it being then night time, set the 
glare of her searchlight on the Spaniard's star- 
board quarter and moved her own engines ahead. 
Slowly the Colon swung around under this great 
pressure and it was hoped that a new vessel would 
be added there and then to our navy. Suddenly, 
however, the Colon rolled over on her port side 



220 The Fall of Santiago. 

with her starboard guns pointing straight and 
silently upward. So ended the Colon, and in this 
■way was the New York in at the death. 

Having thus made an end of Cervera's fleet and 
done their best to blow the Spanish crews into 
eternity, the American commanders remembered 
that it was Sunday and that the enemy being in 
a pit it was their duty as members of the church 
militant to drag him out thereof. All up and 
down the coast, therefore, where had raged the 
tumult of battle the boats and launches of our 
warships were busy in the work of succor. The 
Gloucester's boats rescued the survivors of the 
burning Pluton as they swam and then steamed 
to the beach on which were gathered the sur- 
vivors of the Teresa. Among these was Admiral 
Cervera, a short, paunchy gray-bearded gentle- 
man, who in his underclothes stepped forward 
and surrendered. He explained his personality 
and was transferred to the Iowa where he re- 
ceived the honors of his rank and a new suit of 
clothes. The Indiana lowered her boats and at 
different points along the shore picked up seven 
officers and two hundred and three men. From 
the sinking Yiscaya and the beach near her and 
the sea about her, the Iowa picked up thirty- 
eight officers and two hundred and thirty-eight 
men; whUe "W. R. Hearst, who with that origi- 



The Fall of Santiago. 221 

nality of enterprise which had made him and his 
paper, the New York Journal, of national promi- 
nence, and who had gone to Cuba as the war cor- 
respondent of his own paper, rounded up a squad 
of the Yiscaya's men and delivered them out of 
the hands of the Cubans into those of the officers 
of the St. Louis. So it went on for hours, for 
the rest of the day and the coming night in truth, 
with shelter and courtes}' to the officers, with 
care and comfort to the men, with nursing and 
medical attendance for the wounded, and with 
decent burial for the dead. 

It was the same spirit of mercy to the van- 
quished which led Captain John W. Philip of the 
Texas to forbid his men to cheer when the 
Viscaya ran up the white flag. So long as there 
was any fight in the Spaniard he was to be 
battered and pelted and torn, but when the token 
of submission was flying over a vessel that had 
been changed from a swift-moving thing full of 
life and action into something that was at once a 
furnace and a charnel-house, it was a triumph to 
be sure, but not a time for noisy jubilation. So, 
"Don't cheer men," cried Captain Philip, as the 
jackies began to yell and caper, "those poor 
devils are dying." 

It was in a tenderer and still higher spirit that 
this same Captain Philip, when the fight was over. 



222 The Fall of Santiao^o 



o 



did something that ehoTved him possessed of a 
moral courage as great in degree as the physical 
courage that had kept him on the bridge all 
through the engagement in the fierce give-and- 
take fight between the mighty engines of de- 
struction. The men with their stripped bodies 
black with the grime of battle; the decks strewn 
with the splintered evidences of fight; the great 
guns still steaming, with their breech-locks turned 
open to the air; the turret crews stumbling out 
of their steel furnaces; and the delirium of victory 
over all — surely this was a time and these were 
the elements for the noise and rejoicing of ma- 
terial things, the time to yell for themselves and 
their good ship. But to Captain Philip it was 
som-ething more than a victory of men and ma- 
terial and beckoning to the crew to gather around 
him he stood straight before them, with a clear 
unflinching light in his little beady eyes and tak- 
ing oS his cap said : 

"I want to make public acknowledgment here 
that I believe in God, the Father Almighty, and 
I w'ant all you ofiicers and men to lift your hats 
and from your hearts offer silent thanks to the 
Almighty." 

Plain, simple words and uttered with the plain 
simple faith of a child; yet the heart of the peo- 
ple has been moved more deeply by this avowa), 



TheFall of Santiago. 223 

of the Lord God of Gideon than by all tho other 
thrilling incidents of tho great fight of July 3d — ■ 
whatever may bo the cause of the moving, -whether 
the sentimentality that follows the reading of 
great deeds as a transient feeling, or the in- 
herent Puritanism of tlio nation as a settled fact. 
The statistics of this great eea-battlo almost 
bore out the Philipian idea of a providential 
guardianship. The Spanish losses were five hun- 
dred killed, sixteen hundred prisoners, mostly 
wounded, and the total destruction of four cruis- 
sers and two torpedo-boat destroyers, represent- 
ing a value of over twenty million dollars. 
The American list of casualties stood at one 
man killed, chief yeoman Geo. H. Ellis of the 
Brooklyn, and two wounded, and superficial 
damages which it would cost a few thousand 
dollar to repair. But the hard logic of fact 
shows that the destruction of the Spanish 
fleet and the escape of ours was due to relative 
gunnery; to good gunnery on our side and to 
bad gunnery on theirs. From the moment of the 
fleet's emerging from Santiago to the beaching 
of the Colon, the Spaniards fired as best they 
might. But most of the Spanish shots fell over 
our ships and it was the expert belief of our 
oflScers that the enemy did not change their 
range. 



224 The Fall of Santiago. 

Another reason ^vh3' the Spanish gunnery was 
harmless lay in the demoralization of the gun- 
ners. As we have seen, the Spanish officers 
acknowledged that the scenes on board their 
ships were those of cumulative horrors growing 
out of the din and slaughter of battle, but the 
men have stated that each ship was a drunken in- 
ferno; that gunners and stokers were plied wuth 
rum ; that treasure was scattered about the decks ; 
that the cannoneers reeled drunkenly about their 
guns and that the officers shot them down as they 
reeled. For the credit of humanity it is hoped 
the stories are exaggerated; to the shame of 
Spain it must be said the evidence is strongly 
against her. 

Cervera himself, as he stood on the quarter- 
deck of the Iowa, furnished the key to the situ- 
ation, when he said "the rapidity and accuracy 
of the American fire was almost incredible. " That 
was just it. It was the men behind the guns 
who won this famous victory and the Spaniard 
was smashed by American gunnerj'. 

Here are a few concrete facts to remember in 
this connection, given even at the risk of repeti- 
tion : Cervera came out at 9 :35 a. m. At 10 :10 
the Teresa was on fire. At 10:15 the Furor 
and Pluton were blown up or sinking. At 
10 :30 the Oquendo was beached and had sur- 



The Fall of Santiago. 225 

rendered. At 10 :35 tbo Teresa had followed 
suit. At 11 tbo Viscaya hauled down her colors. 
At 1 :15 the Colon had given up the fight and 
had been wrecked. Including the chase of the 
Colon it had taken us three hours and forty min- 
utes to destroy the Spanish squadron. Leaving I 
out the chase of the Colon, the fight was won in 
one hour and ten minutes, while such was the 
condition of the enemy that victory was assured 
us in thirty minutes. During that decisive 
tliirty minutes we fired over seventeen hundred 
shots, the reports of the discharges being 
literally incessant. By large-sized missiles the 
Oquendo was struck fifty-five times; the Teresa 
thirty-seven times; the Viscaj'a twenty-five and 
the Colon six; while the hits by the smaller guns 
were in each case countless. The fight started 
at a range of six thousand yards, while at two 
thousand and two thousand five hundred yards 
two torpedo boats and two cruisers were anni- 
hilated. The closest fighting of the whole 
engagement, though this record may bring 
sorrow to the artists who persist in laying their 
battling ships alongside each other, was at eleven 
hundred yards, when the Brooklyn and Yiscaya 
were settling accounts. 

As to tlie other lessons of the great fight ; of the 
mute evidences furnished by the Oquendo of how 



226 The Fall of Santiago. 

a ship looks when riven by au internal explosion 
as compared to that furnished by the Maine; of 
the incalculable damage possible when modern 
war ships meet; of the unspeakable horrors tliat 
were found within the charred hulks of the Span- 
ish ships and of the great leap forward which the 
United States navy made in the appreciation of 
Europe's War Lords — of all these things much 
could be and doubtless will be said, but there is 
no place for it here. 



The Fall of Santiago. 227 



CHAPTER X. 

HOW TOEAL SUIlllENDERED MOKE THAN WAS ASKED FOR. 

When Shafter sent his ultimatum of shell or 
surrender to Toral at 8 :20 on the morning of July 
3, Toral replied with a refusal to acknowledge 
himself beaten, and it was for the exchange of 
these communications between the two command- 
ers that the white flag was set up between the 
opi)Osing lines to the surprise of our men on San 
Juan hill, as has been described in a previous 
chapter. The replj- of Toral to Shafter's demand 
was as follows: 

Santiago de Cuba, July 3. 

"To His Excellency the General Commanding 
the forces of the United States, San Juan River: 

"Sir: I have the honor to reply to your com- 
munication of to-day, written at 8 :20 a.m. and 
received at 1 p.m., demanding the surrender of 
this city ; in the contrary case in announcing to 
me that yon will bombard the city, and that I 
advise the foreigners and women and children 



228 The Fall of Santiago. 

that they must leave the city before 10 o'clock 
to-morrow morning. 

"It is my duty to say to you that this city will 
not surrender, and that I will inform the foreign 
consuls and inhabitants of the contents of your 
message. 

"Very respectfully, 

"Jose Toral, 
"Commander-in-Chief, Fourth Corps." 

"When Toral sent this brave reply Cervera was 
a fighting or fleeing possibility and something, 
that sometbing to which the Spaniard is always 
clinging, might be done to relieve the be- 
leaguered city. Pando was coming too, Pando 
with his fresh army from Holquin; the gunnery 
of our ships had not so far wrought much 
havoc to the city or forts — and so he sent his 
answer. He informed the British, Portuguese, 
Chinese and Norwegian consuls of the threatened 
bombardment, and in consonance with this 
notification these ofiicials came to the American 
lines and preferred the request that the bombard- 
ment be postponed until 10 o'clock a.m. Thurs- 
day the 5th, asking further that the non-combat- 
ants, numbering between fifteen thousand and 
twenty tnousand, might be allowed to occupy the 
town of El Caney. To this req.uest Shafter ac- 
ceded, and sent the following notification to 
Toral : 



The Fcall of Santiago. 229 

"Com man ding General Spanish forces, Santiago 
de Cuba, July 3. 

"Sir: In consideration of the request of the 
consuls and officers of your city for delay in car- 
rying out my intention to fire on the city, and in 
the interest of the poor women and children, who 
will suffer very greatly by their enforced depar- 
ture from the city, I have the honor to announce 
that I will delay such action solely in their in- 
terest until noon of the 5fch, providing during 
the interval your forces make no demonstration 
whatever upon mine. I am, with great respect, 
your obedient servant, 

"W. E. Shaftek." 

When the news of the destruction of Cervera's 
fleet reached our headquarters Shafter not only 
sent it to the front, where it was received with a 
round of cheers that stretched from one end of 
the line to the other and with the blare of the 
only band that had managed to keep together, 
but with excellent policy sent it also to the 
commander of the Spanish forces in San- 
tiago. 

Whether the lookout at El Morro had reported 
to Santiago the woful result of Cervera's attempt 
to escape; whether he had not been able to make 
out clearly the full extent of the horror in all its 
smother of smoke and its confusion of rushing 
ships; or whether Shatter's brief bulletin was 



230 The Fall of Santiago. 

the first intimation received by Linares and Toral- 
that Spain had lost another fleet — all these are 
points that have not as yet been definitely settled. 
It is definitely known, however, that the reception 
of the news of this additional disaster caused the 
most poignant grief to the Spanish command- 
ers, and had it not been for their pachyderma- 
tous pride and their strict adherence to the 
punctilios of deference to higher authorities, the 
demand of Shaf ter would have been there and then 
acceded to. 

As it was, Governor-General Blanco was com- 
municated with at Havana, and in obedience to 
the suggestion received from him Toral proposed 
that the truce still continue and that, during it, 
commissioners be appointed from both sides to 
discuss the question of capitulation. 

In deference to this small step pacifically for- 
ward the day of general attack by land and sea 
was postponed, for while Shafter professed to 
the Spaniards that he was opposed to the round- 
about road to surrender along which commission- 
ers would possibly travel, he saw at once that 
this parleying on the part of Toral pointed but 
one way. 

The situation within each line was at this time 
thoroughly characteristic. On the American 
side, the persistent strengthening of the position 




Maj. Gen. W. B. Shafter. 



The Fall of Santiago. 231 

as the practical advantage of the extension of 
time; on the Spanish side, increased distress and 
a desperate evasion of the inevitable. Toral's 
next move in this impractical direction was the 
request to Shafter that the cable operators, who 
had left Santiago on the first notification of bom- 
bardment, might be permitted to return to the 
cit3' in order that the situation might be laid be- 
fore the government at Madrid. Shafter con- 
sented to this, but, as a rider, notified Toral that too 
much time was being consumed in preliminaries, 
and that a Yes or No to the demand for surrender 
must be received before noon of July 9, or the 
threatened bombardment would surely begin. 

The cable operators returned to Santiago on 
July 8, and when the 9th came Toral was ready 
with another move for delay and asked that in- 
stead of a bombardment the American commander 
consider this proposition: that he, Toral, evacu- 
ate the city, provided his forces be permitted to 
retire immediately to Holquin. Shafter refused 
to consider this suggestion, and ordered Kan- 
dolph's Brigade which had just landed to march 
to the front and to bring its field artillery with it. 
Then Toral sent back to say that he had been 
ordered to make this offer by his government 
over the cable which Shafter had so generously 
placed at his disposal, and that he had been fur- 



232 The Fall of Santiago. 

ther requested to ask that the suggestion be laid 
before the government at Washington. Then 
Shafter saw that he had been deftly cornered, 
again postponed the bombardment, forwarded 
the request to Washington and strengthened his 
lines around the Holquin road. In this fashion it 
happened that by the curiously circuitous way of 
the single cable from Santiago that had escaped 
capture — for oddly enough it was only found, and 
that accidentally, by the anchor of the Massa- 
chusetts off Aguadores on the day of the surren- 
<jer — and so it happened, I say, that over this 
cable via the generals in command on the bat- 
tlefield and our appropriated cable from Playa del 
Este, the authorities at Washington and Madrid 
were in communication for the first time since 
Woodford had received his passports. In the same 
roundabout way, but in the most direct language, 
Shafter was instructed to inform Toral, for the 
benefit of Sagasta, that the unconditional surren- 
der of Santiago must be granted, or fire would be 
opened along the entire American line on the 
morning of July 11. 

Possibly Toral thought that in view of the 
many postponements he had secured this,new ulti- 
matum would not be rigorously insisted on. In 
this, however, he was mistaken, for when July 11 
came, with it came the thunder of the great guns 



The Fall of Santiago. 233 

from the ships, the cough of the Vesuvius and 
the eai-th(iuake result of its dyuauiite shells, and 
the roar of Randolph's heavy siege pieces. Some 
of the giant shells from Sampson's ships reached 
the city, and the men at San Juan could see whole 
squares crumble where the steel projectiles ex- 
ploded. The firing from the lines was mainly 
directed against the Spanish trenches and was 
but feebly replied to. Of loss of life there was 
little, Santiago being practically deserted by 
everyone except the garrison, and El Cauey and 
the inland roads therefrom to Siboney being 
crowded with tens of thousands of refugees. It 
was intended as an object lesson, as an emphatic 
reminder that an answer to a certain question 
•was being delayed. Yet with all the havoc 
caused by the bombardment and with a full 
knowledge of their condition, the Spanish leaders 
obstinately clung to their determination to sur- 
render in obedience to commands from Madrid 
and not on the demand of Washington. Then it 
was that Linares, whose pride was broked down 
by sickness and pain, sent the following appeal to 
his government, one of the most pathetic revela- 
tions of the Spanish helplessness and hopeless- 
ness at Santiago that can be imagined : 



234 The Fall of Santiago. 

"Official cablegram, July 12, 1898. 
"To the Minister of "War from the General-in- 
Cbief of the Division of Santiago de Cuba: 

"Although confined to my bed by great weak- 
ness and in much pain, the situation of the long- 
suffering troops here occupies my mind to such 
an extent that I deem it my duty to address Your 
Excellency that the state of affairs may be ex- 
plained. 

"Enemy's lines very near the town and on ac- 
count of the nature of the ground our lines are 
in full view from them. Troops weak ; sick in 
considerable proportion not sent to hospitals 
owing to the necessity for keeping them in the 
intrenchments. Horses and mules without the 
usual allowance of forage. In the midst of the 
wet season, with twenty hours' daily fall of rain 
in the trenches, which are simply ditches dug in 
the ground, without any permanent shelter for 
the men, who have nothing but rice to eat and no 
means of changing or drying their clothing. 
Considerable losses; field officers and company 
officers killed, wounded and sick, deprive the 
troops of necessary orders in critical moments. 

"Under these circumstances it is impossible 
to fight our way out , because in attempting to 
do so our force would be lacking one-third of 
the men, who could not leave, and we would be 
weakened beside by casualties caused by the en- 
emy, resulting finally in a veritable disaster, 
without saving our diminished battalions. In 
order to get out, protected by the Holquin divis- 
ion, it will be necessary for me to break the en- 
emy's line. For this operation the Hohiuin 



The Fall of Santiago. 235 

division will require eight days and will have to 
bring a large amount of rations, which it is im- 
Ijossible to tranHjJort. The solution of the ques- 
tion is ominously imposed upon us. 

"Surrender is inevitable and we can only suc- 
ceed in prolonging the agony. The sacrifice is 
useless, and the enemy understand this. Tbej' 
see our lines, and theirs being well established 
and close up, they tire out our men without expos- 
ing themselves, as they did yesterday', when they 
cannonaded us on land with such an elevation that 
we were unable to see their batteries, and from 
the sea by a squadron which had a perfect range 
and bombarded the town in sections with math- 
ematical precision. 

"The complete exodus of the inhabitants, in- 
sular as well as peninsular, includes the occupants 
of the public offices, with few exceptions. 
There only remains the clergy, and they to-day 
started to leave the town with the archbishop 
at their head. 

"The defenders here cannot now begin a cam- 
paign full of enthusiasm and energy. They 
came here three years ago struggling against the 
climate, privations and fatigue, and now they are 
placed in these sad circumstances, where they 
have no food, no physical force and no means of 
recuperating. The ideal for them is lacking, 
because they are defending the property of those 
that have abandoned it and of those that now are 
being fed by the American forces. The honor 
of the army has its limits, and I appeal to the 
opinion of the whole nation as to whether these 
long-suffering troops have not kept it safely 



236 The Fall of Santiago. 

many times since May 18, -when they were sub- 
jected to the first cannonade. If it is necessary 
that the sacrifice be endured, for reasons of 
which I am ignorant, or that some one shall as- 
sume the responsibility of the unfortunate termi- 
nation which I have anticipated and mentioned in 
a number of telegrams, I faithfully offer myself 
on the altars of my country for the one, and for 
the other I will retain the command for the pur- 
pose of signing the surrender, for my modest rep- 
utation is of little value as compared with the 
country's interests. Linaees. " 

But pitiful as was the condition of the Spanish 
soldiers, that of the American forces was also bad, 
was indeed wretched. When the great fight was 
over, from the firing line along San Juan's crest 
all down the muddy, sodden road to Siboney 
was an unending though halting string of maimed 
and shattered men ; the ambulance-carts — 
crowded like a potter's field — jolted down to the 
hospitals; the surgeon's field-tents were overrun 
and the center of patient men in pain; up and 
down the eight weary ful miles of mire, white- 
faced lads were dragging themselves with aimless 
looks on their faces; and anywhere, wherever they 
might be found, writhing Spaniards were being 
tenderb' but hurriedly cared for by our surgeons, 
while a surprised look crept over the poor fellows' 
faces, or quiet Spaniards were being hurriedly 




Gen. Linares. 



The Fall of Santiago. 237 

buried wben no look could come over their faces 
at all. Our trenches too, like those of the Span- 
iards, -^vere ditches of muddy water and our men 
had to stand in these, wet from the waist down- 
ward and parboiled from the waist upward. 
Despite the truce, incessant alertness was neces- 
sar3' and trenches were constantly being deepened 
and extended. The commissariat was deficient, 
and the need of the necessities from which the 
men had debarrassed themselves on their march 
to the front was again acutely felt. Sickness was 
beginning to appear — had appeared in fact — an 
ugly persistent malarious fever which seized the 
men like a foe in the dark, wrestled with them and 
left them helpless. Then from crowded El Caney 
and the embowered pest-hole of Siboney rumors 
came that the dreaded yellow-jack had appeared, 
and all too soon these rumors were found to be 
well-founded. First a man here and there 
crawled to the doctor with all the telltale 
symptoms upon him. Then they were found by 
batches, pest-camps were established, and all too 
late Siboney was burned out of existence. The 
excitement of fight was gone and in its place was 
present the horrible depression that came alike 
as a collapse after such a tremendous physical 
and nervous strain and as the natural accom- 
paniment of the knowledge that the plague had 



238 The Fall of Santiago. 

appeared and that the Spaniards' invisible ally- 
was at work. 

Things were bad euongh, wretched enough 
with us indeed. But here the similarity of con- 
ditions ended. Back of us was a strong, rich 
government, with one fixed object in view; a 
victorious navy with no floating foe to take ac- 
count of; reinforcements on a score of hurrying 
transports and others already at the Cuban base 
of supplies, and best of all the great American 
heart which beat in unison with that of the 
army. On the other hand was an army without 
support of navy, with its local reinforcements 
cut off, and hampered by a divided government, 
incapable alike of rendering assistance or appre- 
ciating the desperate bravery of its despairing 
soldiers. 

General Miles arrived almost on the echo of the 
bombardment, and when another flag of truce ap- 
peared in the valley that lay between San Juan 
and Santiago, and a message was sent to the 
American headrpaarters repeating the proposition 
for the appointment of commissioners, the re- 
turn proposition was made that in such a dis- 
cussion the chiefs themselves should meet. A 
conference of these was set for July 14, at noon, 
and at that hour Generals Miles, Shafter and 
"Wheeler met General Toral and aids underneath 



The Fall of Santiago. 239 

a cieba tree halfway between the lines. Toral 
informed our generals that he had received in- 
structions from Captain-General Blanco to con- 
sent that the commissioners should have plenary' 
power to negotiate the terms of a surrender. 

For himself, Toral named as commissioners 
General Escario, Lieutenant-Colonel Fortan and 
Albert Mason, the British Vice-Consul; while 
Shafter named Generals "\A'heeler and Ewers ajid 
Captain Miley. The commissioners met under 
the same cieba tree at 2 o'clock in the after- 
noon, Toral being also present. Though so near 
a settlement, the dilatory and evasive tactics of 
the Spaniards were consistently manifest. It 
was stated by Toral that the sanction of Blanco 
to the proceedings was but preliminary, and that 
the consent of Madrid would be necessary to 
complete the bargain. This the American com- 
missioners declared to be unsatisfactory and 
wrong, and in their direct fashion presented 
thirteen articles of surrender to Toral for his ac- 
ceptance or rejection. But no such direct methods 
were in Toral's mind; and in the flood of talk 
that followed, the American commissioners 
were so swaiaped from the plain ground of 
solid fact that they actually agreed to proceed 
to the consideration of the preliminaries, leaving 
open the question of whether or not the Spanish 



240 The Fall of Santiae:o. 



o" 



forces had surrenclerecl. On this undefined 
basis the discussion of the thirteen articles was 
proceeded with, much to the enjoyment of the 
voluble Spaniards and the growing impatienco 
of the Americans. 

At length when midnight was passed and n, 
crystallization of result seemed as far off as ever. 
General Wheeler insisted on a test of honafdes, 
and the articles were taken up seriatim and each 
was dealt with until it was accepted. When all 
had been thus declared satisfactory, Wheeler 
further insisted that the Spanish commissioners 
should a£Bx their signatures to the articles and 
this, much against their will they did, in the early 
morning hours of July 15. But satisfactory as 
this was, back of it all remained the unpleasant 
fact that nothing was concluded. Toral had in- 
sisted that everything was preliminary and sub- 
ject to orders from Madrid, and Toral carried the 
day. There was no apprehension, however, on 
the American side as to the outcome, and the con- 
cession to Toral's dignity was not regarded as 
calculated to jeopardize the result. Next day the 
atmosphere was cleared up by the receipt of a 
dispatch from Toral saying that his government 
had "authorized him to capitulate." This one 
phrase was intelligible both in its original Span- 
ish and in the unique translation which lies in 



The Fall of San-tiago. 24:1 

the archives of the "War Department, but the rest 
of it was a mystery. The document reads as 
follows : 

"Santiago de Cuba, July IG. 
"To His Excellency, Commander-in-Chief of 
the American Forces. 

"Excellent Sir : lam now authorized by my 
government to capitulate. 

"I have the honor to so apprise you, and re- 
questing you that you designate hour and place 
where my representatives shall appear to compare 
with those of Your Excellency to effect the arti- 
cles of capitulation on the basis of what has been 
agreed upon to this date in due time. 

"I wish to manifest my desire to know the 
resolutions of the United States Government 
respecting the return of army, so as to note on 
the capitulation, also the great courtesy of Your 
Great Graces and return for their great gener- 
osity and impulse for the Spanish soldiers, and 
allow them to return to the Peninsula with the 
honors the American army do them, the honor to 
acknowledge as dutifully descended. 

"Jose Toral, 
"General Commanding Fourth Army Corps. 
"(Signed) "General Shafter, 
"Commanding American Forces." 

"Whether it was during the many conferences 
in which interpreters of varying degrees of inac- 
curacy were employed as the medium of inform- 



242 The Fall of Santiago. 

iug one side wliat the other side said; whether 
neither side quite understood the literal import 
of the various dispatches of demand and evasion; 
•which of these conditions lies as the cause of the 
result, this amazing fact remains that when Toral 
surrendered, our leaders found that he had not 
only consented to a capitulation of the city of 
Santiago and its army, but that he intended to 
give up what was practically the whole of East- 
ern Cuba and its armies. Miles has stated that 
he was surprised. And so was indeed every 
member of the commission, but each man kept 
silence with the imperturbability of a practiced 
poker-player whose bluff had not been called. 
The terms of Toral's capitulation, in brief were 
these : 

"Surrender of all Spanish forces in that part 
of Santiago Province which lies east of a straight 
line drawn from Aceradores, on the south coast, 
to Dos Palmas, in the interior, and thence to 
Sagua de Tanamo, on the north coast; estimated 
at nearly twenty-five thousand men, of which 
number twelve thousand had not been engaged. 

"Surrender of all war material then in the de- 
scribed district. All artillery and batteries at 
the harbor entrance and gunboat in harbor to be 
left intact. 

"Officers to retain their side arms and personal 
property. 



The Fall of Santiago. 243 

"Privates to jj;ive up their arms of all kiiuls 
and retain their personal property only. 

"Toral authorized to take away the military 
archives belongiiiii to the described district. 

"The United States to transport all the sur- 
rendered troops back to Spain as soon as possible, 
embarking them near the garrisons they then 
occupied. 

"The volunteer and guerrilla forces allowed 
to remain in Cuba, if they wish, under parole, 
during the present war. 

"Toral's army to march out of Santiago with 
honors of war, depositing their arms at a point 
mutually agreed upon, to await disposition of 
United States Government, our commissioners 
recommending that they be returned to the 
soldiers. 

"The existing municipal authorities to con- 
tinue in control of the garrison cities until the 
Spanish troops were embarked. 

"Minos and torpedoes at mouth of Santiago 
Harbor to be removed by Spanish. 

"No Cubans to be allowed to enter Santiago 
until after evacuation. 

"Eefugees from Santiago to be allowed to 
return to their homes. 

"Miss Clara Barton and Red Cross agents to 
be allowed to enter the city." 

The time of surrender was fixed at 9 o'clock 
of the morning of July 17. At that hour Gen- 
erals Shafter, Lawton, Wheeler, Kent and Hines, 
accompanied by their staffs and escorted by 



244 The Fall of Santiago. 



&" 



cavalry and infantiT detacbments went at an easy 
pace down the winding road from San Juan hill 
to the famous cieba tree, and sent an aid to the 
Spanish lines to notify General Toral that Shafter 
was ready to receive the surrender of Santiago. 
Toral, white-haired and sad-faced, almost in- 
stantly appeared with his staff and about a hun- 
dred picked men and came loping up the road. 
As the two commanders neared, the trumpeters 
on both sides saluted with flourishes, while from 
a Spanish battery a salute was fired and from our 
troops lined up along the trenches there w'eut a 
stalwart American cheer. Toral unbuckled his 
sword and saluting, handed it to Shafter saying : 

"Hago entrega al General Shafter, del ejercito 
Americano, la ciudad y fortalejas de la ciudad 
de Santiago." 

("I make over to General Shafter, Commander 
of the American Army, the citadel and fortifica- 
tions of the City of Santiago.") 

To this Shafter replied: "I receive the city in 
the name of the Government of the United 

States." 

With this acceptance, however, Toral's sword 
was handed back to him and then with a clatter 
of hoofs and a rattle of American scabbards 



The Fall of Santiago. 245 

Shafter and Toral rode side by side into the city 
at the head of their dual escort. At its entrance 
the civil authorities and church dignitaries in 
their glistening vestments came forward to meet 
conquered and conquerors. Along the ill-paved 
streets, and past the yellow-walled houses, the 
procession passed until the Plaza de la Eeina 
was reached. On one side rose the Mauresque 
Palace, on the other the great cathedral, and on 
the other two the broad-verandaed clubhouse 
of San Carlos and the Cafe de la Venus. Stretch- 
ing from side to side of the Plaza was a long blue 
line of the Ninth Infantry and a picked troop of 
the Second Cavalry. "Well to the front was the 
Sixth Cavalry Band ; massed on the flagging be- 
fore the palace were Shafter and his retinue. 

As the cathedral clock struck twelve every eye 
was turned to the red-tiled roof of the palace, 
from the flagpole of which streamed out the yel- 
low and crimson flag of Spain, but before the last 
stroke of noon that standard came fluttering 
down, never to be again raised, and in its place 
ran up the brilliant folds of the Stars and Stripes. 
As the full standard broke out in the breeze the 
troops came to order arms; the cavalry band 
broke into the "Star Spangled Banner;" there 
was a faint cheer from the wondering people who 
pressed against the Plaza rails and crowded to 



246 The Fall of Santiago. 

the barred windows of the houses; while from 
the Araerican lines drifted in the distant boom of 
Capron's saluting batteries and the muffled roar 
of our cheering troops. 
Santiago had fallen. 



THE END. 



»l 70 9 ^ 



.„^-' -^p. 



.'^^ 



o"?- 



"'^- .^^ 



V- ,^x 






^h 















,aV ^. 






